Harry Potter and the Alternate World
by vipertoothharry
Summary: Harry gets thrown into an alternate world in a last ditch attempt to defeat Voldemort. In a world where science has fallen, and Grindlewald is on the ascension, what shall he do?
1. Chapter 1

Prologue

_June 10 1942_

A resounding **CRACK** echoed through the main hall of Hogwarts causing students and teachers alike to look towards the source of the sound. Rather than a spell or hex they saw a single man kneeling on the stone. The dragonhide robes he wore were tattered and smoking, his hair scorched to a bare buzz, and blood trailed faintly from various scuffs on his face.

A shattered wand fell from his hand to clatter on the floor, and as if it were a signal everyone started to move.

"Prefects, please escort your housemates to your dorms." Headmaster Dippet announced from where he stood at the head table. "Please, hurry now."

There was a scramble as the students moved to do just that. Only one of the prefects stayed behind, a raven haired witch who was well upon her way to becoming Head Girl, Minerva McGonagall. She had already reached the man, snatching away the broken remnants of a wand with her left hand, whilst casting a series of diagnostics charms with her right.

The teachers didn't even wait for instructions having already been told what their duties were if the wards had been breeched. Dippet led them to the battlements, thinking himself that it was unlikely that the wards were breached, that this was an attack, but it was too much of a risk not to suspect that Grindelwald was making his move finally upon Britain. Only Dumbledore remained behind to gauge the threat that the strange presented.

"Your diagnosis Miss McGonagall?" He asked in a deep rich voice as he reached the pair.

"He is magically exhausted sir, suffering from the after affects of the Cruciatus curse, and has broken bones and internal injuries from dozens of additional curses. There are also indications of several rituals in his magical aura which I am unfamiliar with, nothing dark, but very powerful rituals." Minerva looked up with a frown furrowing the brow of her young face. "I'm also getting some strange readings regarding his age, but truthfully it is irrelevant, he needs a healer immediately."

"Mmm, indeed." Albus intoned, his wand flicking almost absently. Minerva's head jerked up as the incantation passed his lips, almost inaudible. The body on the floor began to glow a bright blue, not the color of pure 'Light' Magic, but neither was it the deep purple of 'Dark' Magic either. A tree sprang up out of the glow and a branch began to pulse with light before another lit as well.

"Merlin's charm, Professor?"

"Yes Miss McGonagall, I did not think I would ever have need of it, but as you can see our guest is a dimensional traveler." Albus sucked softly on the lemon drop in his mouth, mulling over the fact that the figure was also seemingly a time traveler as well. It seemed to prove his own thoughts on time travel, but that was not pressing at this time. A flick of the wand summoned a gurney under the injured man, lifting him from it in the same position he had fallen in. "And now we shall take him to Poppy."

* * *

Chapter 1

I awoke in a room with a familiar ceiling. Hogwart's infirmary, I knew it well given all the time I had spent inside it during my years of schooling. There are three thousand four hundred, and sixty four hand-fitted stones that comprise it. I knew each one like I knew the back of my hand, and they hadn't changed since the founding.

When though, now that was a question that was tickling my mind.

Not because I had purposely tried for time traveling, no Voldemort and his goons had chased me into the Time Room of the Department of Mysteries before everything well and truly hit the fan. I had been trying for the 'Door of Mysteries' as I had found the key for it. One last try to end Voldemort's reign of terror over the British Wizarding World. That bid had failed.

"Ah, you are awake. I will make it a point to not doubt Madam Pomfrey's medical predictions again." The voice that spoke from my blind side was strong and vibrant, and all, all too familiar. I tried to jerk out of bed, to get away from, and turn towards the threat but all I received for my efforts was pain screaming across my body.

"Easy there, you have had quite the beating, and your wounds have not fully healed." The voice that I recognized as Albus Dumbledore spoke from just beside my ear. I turned by head so that the milky white of an eye given to blindness was not the only one that could bear on him. "Ah, I see, you are blind in that eye. I will remember to sit on the other side then."

"W..." The beginning of the word came as a dry rasp out of my mouth, and the figure that was entirely too young to be the Headmaster that I remembered thankfully held a glass of water to my lips. The liquid tasted as I thought it would after trekking across a desert, a taste of life itself. "What year is it?"

"It is the year Nineteen Hundred and Forty-two." Dumbledore remarked, which explained his brown hair, and relatively unlined face. Hell the man was only seventy or so, and hadn't even defeated Grindelwald yet. "Now, I should say I understand you are from the future, or a version of it yourself. What year do you hail from?"

"Two thousand and seven." I said without even thinking about it. My eye widened in alarm and I looked at the glass that I had just been given a drink from.

"Just a precaution you understand. With Grindelwald moving on the continent, we must preserve our borders and Hogwarts in particular." Dumbledore stated in a very serious voice. I gave him a small nod, truthfully I'd have been hard pressed not to dose myself with truth serum if I'd shown up in my past. "Now, do you mean the Ministry of Great Britain any harm, or seek to harm the inhabitants of Hogwarts at this time?"

"N...Ye...Maybe." Stumbled out over my tongue and I had to think of that for a moment. The results of turthserum questioning weren't normally so gray. It was normally just a yes or no answer though one could speak in greater detail. Dumbledore was still regarding me calmly though he opened his mouth to speak. "I mean no harm to a legally formed government of Great Britain, or any harm to any moral inhabitant of the castle."

"That does set my mind at ease more than a one word answer. I dare say you might know of, or suspect some among the student body that would be willing to betray our country." Dumbledore stated, looking to his side at something only he could see behind the obscuring curtain. There was a mumble of sound that indicated some sort of eavesdropping charm was at play to keep me from hearing the conversation. "My associate has reminded me that there are two more questions I must ask before the serum wears out. What is your name? How have you come to this time?"

"Harry James..." I trailed off for a moment trying to gather my thoughts. There was a Potter Patriarch in this time. If I claimed that last name then I would be placing myself under his rule, and I had no way of knowing just how traditional things were in 1942. I hadn't paid much attention in history. That ruled out the Black line as well, which left only one. "Evans, of the House of Evans. As to how I arrived, I had the misfortune of fighting the forces of a tyrannical despot who had seized control of the Ministry in the Room of Time in the Department of Mysteries."

I paused, feeling that the truth serum was wearing off. So to was the strengthening draught that had no doubt been in the water as well. Why had they lost the ability to make potions tasteless, colorless and odorless in the future?

"I don't recommend that by the way." I gave a bit of a wan smile, feeling the strength leave my body, and pain and exhaustion grab hold again. My vision darkened, and I heard just a few words before all sense left me.

"Well that explains the words 'lawfully formed'..."

* * *

It was three days, or so they told me, before I awoke again. I don't really remember them very well even if I was supposedly awake and lucid at times. Recovering from curses and powerful magic is that way, and I still had the backlash of claiming the Evans line to deal with on top of that.

Still in three days a healer as skilled as Madam Pomfrey can do a lot. Even if the Madam Pomfrey wasn't the same one that I remembered from my youth. No this one looked enough alike to be hear mother, or knowing the Wizarding World her grandmother. Still the skills were much the same.

It felt nice to be able to get up and stretch, even if I was confined to some generic cast-off robes that Dumbledore had transfigured to my size. I had learned in the three hours that I was awake that this was not my world. That not only had I traveled in time, but I had traveled across it to another branch as it were. That was both comforting and troubling.

Comforting, because I didn't have to worry about my actions in the past changing my future. As Hermione had once told me, 'If you're ever in the past don't touch anything, don't do anything because you never know what your actions might cause'. I'm not entirely sure where she got that, especially since we had used time travel to our benefit in the past, well, future now, but I wasn't going to argue with her memory. I always lost.

Disturbing, because it meant that many of the things that I had taken for granted in my own knowledge of history were not true here. There was no muggle world wars, neither of them. Grindelwald had done something near the turn of the century that caused all the muggle's impressive science to slowly retreat. They were locked in the age of steam, electricity had stopped working the way they understood, and so too did many of their explosives and weapons. The sudden loss of those weapons, and the actions of Grindelwald shortly after had broken the Statute of Secrecy and catapulted the pureblooded Wizards and Witches of power worldwide to the top of a new aristocracy. Even what had once been the poorest of wizard families were rich members of the merchant class in this world.

An aristocracy I had claimed membership of myself by claiming the House of Evans as my own.

So I had choices. I could jump headfirst into this world, even though it was all new and unfamiliar to me, or I could take other steps that would see that I had at least Hogwarts as a foundation to my new life. One of the few things that actually made it through my battle and the transfer across time and dimensions whole was my ring of Dark Arts and Defense Mastery. It was proof that I had gained through trial and tribulation a knowledge equal to that of a Master of not only Dark Arts, but the Defense against them.

Strangely enough, as if by coincidence Hogwarts was looking for an additional member of the staff to teach a class much like the DA had been. Not a DADA class, but a class that would be a primer to magical combat. The British Ministry was raising an army, and they weren't alone given what was going on just across the channel.

If there was one thing I knew well it was combat.

"It is good to see you up and moving around." Dumbledore said from just behind my shoulder and I turned to face him slowly.

He was standing on the far side of the hospital bed I had vacated just a few short minutes ago. It was his second visit of the day, the first having been when he had dropped off the robes for me to wear while I was still unconscious. With him though was someone that I should recognize, but couldn't quite put a name to a face.

She was tall for a woman, even from the time that I was from, nearly six feet in height, and perhaps three inches taller than I could claim myself. Curly raven tresses framed a sharply featured face, and green eyes only slightly less vibrant than my own gave me their own appraisal.

"Minerva McGonagall, may I present to you Harry James Evans of the House of Evans." Dumbledore moved his hand in introduction, and I barely manged to hold back an open mouthed gape of shock. Albus continued even as his eyes twinkled in amusement at the shock which was obviously poorly concealed to him. "Harry Evans, I present Minerva Aynslee McGonagall of the House McGonagall."

"A pleasure." I stated, giving the young woman who in another timeline was to become my Transfiguration teacher and Head of House a deep bow.

"Perhaps." Minerva stated in the clipped tones that I knew so well even as she dipped in a curtsey.

"Well now that you are introduced..." Albus said, a quirk of a grin on his mouth. "I expect you will wish to proceed to Gringotts to claim your family keys and rings, and to do some shopping at the very least. Minerva has offered to accompany you on this trip, as she has some personal business of her own to see to."

"Yes, I do wish to get a wand at the very least." I stated waving my hand a bit to set the bed into motion of making itself. It was a blatant display of power, but I wanted Albus to be at least respectful of me. "Things are much harder without one. I believe I will also need one to interview for the Combat Professorship."

"Indeed." Albus said after a short silence which had both of my visitors looking at me in a much more intrigued light. "You will want to procure a sword as well, and if I might inquire as to why you wish this position? I know I should wait and ask when you are formally interviewing, but I find myself personally curious as well. I would think that you would want nothing more than time to settle in to your position in this world."

I was glad he didn't bring up going back, and insult my intelligence. I might not have been as bright as Hermione, but even I knew that there was no feasible way of recreating what happened to me. Blowing up the Room of Time might work, but then again it might have been the interaction of a handful of unknown curses reacting with the sand of time that caused my trip. Besides it was doubtful to the extreme that the Ministry would even let me try. Even if they did, what did I have to return to? All my friends were dead, and Voldemort held unswayable rein over the entire Wizarding World. Sure I had kept trying to overthrow him, but that was more of who I am, than what I thought I could accomplish.

I'd be damned if I ever bowed before a monster like that.

"Hogwarts was the closest thing I ever had to a real home." I stated, looking away from the pair. I couldn't bear to see the looks in the pairs eyes, not when their older counterparts had been so fundamental to that feeling in my past. "Being here, even if everything is different still gives me a sense of comfort, an anchor to hold to."

"I see." Dumbledore gave a soft nod and stepped back. "I shall leave the pair of you to it then. Please see that Miss McGonagall returns prior to the evening meal, as the castle will be going into lockdown at that time."

"I shall endeavor to do so." I stated, stepping around the bed and politely offering my left arm to the far too young Minvera. Bloody hell, I was years older than her now! "Shall we?"

"Yes." Minerva stated in another clipped tone, though this was warmer than the last. Still she looked at my arm as if was going to bite her for a long moment before taking it.

The walk through the castle to the main entrance was completed in silence. I felt like there were things that she wanted to say and ask, but wouldn't so long as there were other ears around. Given the penchant for gossip to travel the castle faster than light in my day, and the likelihood of it being the same now, I didn't blame her. Plus there was quite the walk from the entrance to the edge of the apparition wards which would give us time to talk if she so wished.

It seemed my thought was right as she began to speak as soon as we had passed through the doors. "Harry, may I call you that?"

"Only if I can in return call you Minerva." I replied, and was shocked by a shy smile.

"Minnie, please. Minerva makes me look for which parent or Professor has called for me." Minerva held my eyes for a moment before a faint blush colored her cheeks and she looked away. "If I may pose a question that has to do with the business I am pursuing today?"

"Of course Minnie, but I must ask in return that you side-along me when we apparate to Gringotts. I'm half afraid I'll splinch myself by apparating into wards I don't expect." I gave her a grin of my own, and felt a thrill as she smiled with some genuine mirth. She slapped my arm with her free hand.

"As if I would let that happen." There was a moment of shared grins before she looked away again. I must admit that though it was strange to be looking up into her youthful face from so close, it was also quite familiar. "Was... Was I married in your future?"

In that one question I learned a lot about the young woman at my side, who I was still having trouble as seeing as a separate entity from my transifiguration teacher. Of course the question helped quite a bit. I learned that she knew of my status here in their world, possibly because Dumbledore had told his favorite student, but more likely because she was there when it was found out. Additionally I found inside her a insecurity that all young women seem to have, the fear that they would never find a match.

It saddened me that I had to confirm that fear.

"No, I am afraid to say that you were not married, nor had you ever been so." There was a soft gasp beside me, and Minerva stumbled slightly and grasped my arm all the tighter to keep upright. I hurried to give her some sort of comfort. "I can't say that you were never to **be** married. The time between now and the time that I departed in my world was quite turbulent. One war after another in the magical world."

"I see." I heard the faint hint of tears in her voice, and the shaken breath that she drew only confirmed it. I had never been good at comforting women, not even Hermione who had been my closest friend and confident for a number of years after Ron's death, and before her own. After a moment she seemed to gather herself. "I must say that though it is bad news, it is not really a surprise."

"It isn't?" I asked, somewhat taken aback by the self-loathing in that statement. This young Minerva reminded me quite a bit of a mix of Ginny and Hermione. Strong, self-assured, and driven. I found it quite unthinkable that she would be as shunned as her voice hinted.

"Yes, it is. That I am a woman and a chaser on the quidditch team would be bad enough, but on top of that I am the most freakishly..."

I cut off her tirade right there. "I would thank you to never use that word before me again, and most especially not when referring to yourself or others."

"Unusually tall woman at Hogwarts." Minerva finished up, my own sharp voice having startled the clipped harsh tones completely out of her own speech. Her whole body was tense, and the faint remnants of tear tracks still ran from her eyes. "I have spent nearly my whole life being an outcast because of my gender and my house placement, and now I have no reason to believe that it will be anything but more of the same sort."

"Then, what are you going to do about it, Minnie?" I asked stopping short of the apparition ward and turning to face her. I waved around us. "If you didn't know of it, you would have continued on the same course you have chosen, but now you have a choice."

"My choice is entirely dependent upon your own." Minerva shot back at me, her eyes boring back into mine. She chewed visibly on indecision before continuing. "All I can do is ask, no I will beg you to please not make the decision in haste."

"What decision is that?" I asked, my heart lodged in my throat. I knew that this would be one of those things that I would question for the rest of my life, and I hated that I was always called on to make these decisions on the spur of the moment.

"There is an outstanding marriage contract between the House of McGonagall and the House of Evans." Minerva stated softly, refusing again to meet my eye. She looked pointedly over my shoulder, her face set as if in stone. "When you register at Gringotts you will be presented this contract and will have to chose to wed me, or demand other recompense from my family for the service that demanded this payment."

That rocked me back on my heels. I had not been aware that there was any outstanding agreement between those two families until now. Then again it could have been that my mother had already absolved the agreement, or that some preset amount of time or generations. It was probably the latter I realized looking at the woman before me.

"We need to talk about this." I said, taking her elbow firmly. I gave her no chance to protest, but stepped across the apprarition ward with her in tow, and turned in place.

We disappeared with a soft crack, a testament to both my control and power with that form of travel, and reappeared a endless second later from the void before an old Roman manor house. The walls were overgrown with ivy, hiding the salt and pepper colored gneiss blocks from view. It was a manor I'd only been to once, because it had been destroyed by Voldemort's forces shortly after I arrived.

"What... where?" Minerva's flustered voice sounded beside me, and her eyes alit on the squat stone structure before us.

"Evans manor, Minnie." I replied, almost absentmindedly. There was something different about this place, something had changed in the sixty years that lay between now and the time when I had visited it in the future. It seemed less abandoned, if that was possible for a property that had lain unclaimed for over a century. The sharp crack of an arriving elf gave the reason for that.

"Oh, it is a master! Welcome, welcome! I is Frody." The house elf, Frody, wore his tea cozy in a manner much like a toga. It was clean and well embroidered, but I guess given the lack of people to serve that the elf would have time to make himself something decent to wear.

House Elves, I had learned, were bonded to a property in the absence of a family. It made sense, I guess given that my mother had visited the property at least once or twice before she died that any elves in residence had bonded to her, and left the absent manor. I wondered what had happened to them, had they been killed trying to protect her and father from Voldemort? Had she held the same beliefs as Hermione and freed them?

"Why are we here?" Minnie demanded, ignoring the vibrant elf that was before her, and turning a glare on me.

"Well I needed to get the signet ring before seeing the Goblins." I replied stepping into the open doors. The front foyer was clean, and everything in view was in good repair. The paintings were dormant, but that was likely because of charms laid on them by the elves to keep them from going insane with the absence of human company. "It is not wise to wholly trust the Goblins to act in a trustworthy manner without proof that you have a right to lay claim to a vault. Besides we need to talk, and I very much doubt you want anyone overhearing our discussion."

I looked up at her and gave her my best piercing glare. Truthfully I was far from angry with Minerva, but I needed some time to gather my own thoughts before anything could continue. I also needed her to be truthful with me, so that I could make a decision that would satisfy us both.

Not to mention I really needed that signet ring.

I had learned from Voldemort's own efforts at trying to lay claim to the Gaunt and Slytherin vaults that the Goblins were very reluctant to allow claims to be laid on long defunct vaults. The monies in those vaults reverted to Goblin oversight when there were no claimants, and the Goblins outright hated to lose any control they had over coin or the power that said coin gave them in the wizard economy.

Voldemort had smashed aside the barriers they put before him with pure power, but I was reluctant to go that route. He might not need them, but I didn't want to earn their ire unless it was absolutely necessary. They'd at least respect me if I showed up with the Evans signet ring.

"Frody, are there any other elves in residence?" I asked, stepping forward and placing my hand on the door. It cracked open, recognizing my right to enter, and I put off bonding the wards to me at the current time. The manor likely came with associated lands, perhaps even an abandoned village, and I did not have the time to receive the landgift at the current time. It was likely to knock me out for days, if not weeks.

"Yes master! There is sixteen elveses and eights childrens nots able to works!" Frody said nodding his head frantically as I stepped inside the open doors, drawing Minerva with me. I blinked at that. That was a huge number of elves, and given their penchant to only expand their population as needed to adequately clean any and all houses, argued for a village, and quite a large one at that.

"Very well then. Frody could you show us to a sitting room, and have one of the elves bring us some refreshments? Tea and biscuits if you can, please draw the money from the house account if necessary to purchase them." I said, quickly rushing ahead and giving him permission to buy the things. Frody had started wringing his ears, which was a sure sign that the items I asked for were either missing, or had expired long before even with preservation charms. "Please bring me the signet ring once the tea has arrived as well."

Minerva was thankfully quiet while Frody led us to what was likely the ladies bower. The decorations and furniture were archaic, but the flowers that wreathed the room were freshly cut, and pointed to either rushed work by the elves, or a daily routine. My bet was the latter.

"Now," I said after all but pushing Minerva into a seat, and taking one across a small table from her for myself, "tell me why you want me to accept the contract."


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

"Well..." Minerva started, obviously put off by my brusque nature and emphatic demand. She took the moment to organize her thoughts, and gather her hair that escaped the tight bun at the back of her head behind her ears. "For one, I have no wish to break my family."

I answered her statement with a rise of my eyebrows. The debt owed was that large? That made the fact that I did not know of it all the more important, though it might have been that Dumbledore had taken steps to eliminate it when he was the Potter steward. There was always the possibility that there had been a life debt owed by one of my preceding family to the McGonagalls that had finally canceled things out.

"Fifty years before the Evans line went into slumber, they supported a move by my ancestors that allowed the McGonagalls to reclaim our seat among the Five Hundred Founding Families. That support hinged upon a witch of the McGonagall House marrying a Wizard of the Evans family." Minerva paused in her explanation to pierce me with a gaze. "The Patriarch of the Evans family died childless, and his brother fathered only squibs."

"Which caused the line to fall defunct." I supplied taking the tea pot that had arrived without a glimpse of the elf that had brought it to pour two cups. I added a dash of milk to one and stirred in a dab of honey before pushing it across to Minerva. There was a wide selection of biscuits as well, and I took one to enjoy with my tea. "That also explains why you think buying me out would break your family."

A seat on the Wizengamot as one of the Five Hundred contained much power. Once a year a Five Hundred Family had the ability to 'table' a single discussion. In effect it caused the proposal to sit un-debated for a year before it, or any other proposal of similar wording could be put forward. Families had, and still did table discussions year after year to protect their own interest, only letting them go to vote when they were no longer damaging, or when the success or defeat of the item was certain.

That power was jealously guarded, and when a family lost a five hundred seat it was all but impossible to regain it. It was likely that the Evans House had indebted itself heavily, or called due many favors that were now lost.

"Indeed." Minerva sipped her tea before taking a chocolate biscuit. Tea was the only time I had ever seen her eat sweats, but even I didn't know she had a penchant for chocolate. "I also wish it because I do not want to go through life alone. My prospects were slim before knowing that I never married, and with the refusal of a contract I would be anathema to all but a first-generation."

The last was said with a bit of bitterness, and since I knew that Minerva had never believed the sort of blood-purity nonsense that Voldemort had espoused, I immediately jumped to a conclusion.

"Which would be a marriage your father would not support." I inclined my head as it all settled in my mind with her acquiescent nod. "That still does not explain why you would enter into a loveless marriage, Minnie."

"Would it be loveless? Just because a marriage is arranged and not agreed to in the heat of passion does not mean it shall be loveless." Minerva shot back. Her voice was heated now, but not in ire towards me but passion. "I have seen the concern that you hold for me in your eyes, heard the tenderness in your voice. There is a a possibility there..."

I looked up, regarding her with my one working eye. "Concern and tenderness does not love make."

"Yes." Minerva relented, but surged forwards with courage. Straight to the Gryffindor goes. "However they are the building blocks of a loving relationship, and yet even if we were to never grow into the love ballads are written of, I for one would welcome the familiar comfort of a close friendship. My parents have that, and I would count myself lucky to claim just that as well."

There was the difference between our outlooks, I realized. I was raised in a time that love was what was to be sought before marriage, and Minerva had been raised in a time in which that ideal was just beginning to be sought. Instead of knowing she would marry for love, she hoped for friendship and feared outright loathing. This was a world that was much more archaic than the one that I was used to, one trending even more to traditionalism. Instead of the Wizarding World following the mundane towards social progress, we had the Wizarding World setting the social stage for the Mundane.

The question was, could I take such a step with a person that I was coming to realize I knew so little?

I sipped my tea, taking the time that afforded me to study the person that I sat across from. This was not the steadfast woman of my memories, but the bud of a woman that she had grown from. This was a person who did not live in a closeted realm, but was a member of a branch of society growing and gaining in power. How much further would Professor McGonagall have pushed the limits of her art had she not been constrained by the Statute of Secrecy?

"Very well." I said, giving in with that thought. I knew that I could not say no to a person that I saw so much of my past loves in. I had grieved them, despaired of ever finding another like them, and yet here was perhaps the woman from which their mould had been made. I could not turn up this chance, not when I longed as well for the familiar comfort of a friend. "I will consent to a standard handfasting of three months, to be followed by marriage should we prove to be compatible. In return you shall gain your Mastery in Transfiguration. Are we agreed?"

* * *

Even as I stumbled upon our landing, mentally cursing the need to be side-alonged I had to admit that Minerva was quite gifted at it. For no older than she was, and for as recent as the skill must have been learned she was very good. Better than I at her age at any rate.

"I shall meet you and your father at the bank then." The words rolled off my tongue a bit harsher than I had intended, and I gave a wince at the way they sounded in my ears. I hated being pressured into anything, and though I had made a choice in this it still grated against me wrong.

"I look forward to it." Minerva said, her tone a little put out as well, and I gave a sigh.

"Minnie..." I implored as she turned to walk away, half reaching to stop her. She looked over her shoulder at me, and I gave a shrug. "It is just so much at once, on top of everything else. I feel like I haven't had a chance to breathe, let alone think. I am sorry I am...irritable."

"I understand, and I shall try and keep from responding in kind." Minerva said before turning and continuing on her way.

It was almost noon, and I still needed to get a wand, access my the vault, and buy the sundry things that every person needs in life. I gave a shrug and started to walk in the direction that Olivander's was.

Diagon Alley was not the way I remembered it. Always before it had been a twisted warren of streets, side streets, alleys and such. Compressing as much space as the Wizarding shopping district took up into the small alley that it had occupied, and gained its name from, in my future had truly warped things. Streets ran straight and true, and as I glanced down intersections I saw bits of London down them that could only be on the 'mundane' side. Streetcars pulled by horses, and others belching forth streams of steam were visible in the distance. That drove another nail home, proving that this was the past, but not my past.

As well there were people openly walking the street in the Wizarding District that were not wizard or witch. To see so many people who could do no magic walking the street, and whose only reaction to a wizard or a witch was a polite nod of the head was impossibly good to see.

I looked up at the sign of the shop before entering. 'Ollivander's Makers of Fine Wands Since 382 BC' it stated proudly. Not for the first time I found myself wondering if Ollivander himself had been making the wands since then. The bell tinkled my arrival, and a much younger man than I had been expecting emerged from a back room, putting paid to my thoughts.

"Good day, Mister...Hrm, Your name is not your name. And why do I remember a wand that I haven't sold?" Ollivander asked in a cheerful voice, a wide smile splitting his face. "I trust though that you are in need of a new one?"

"Yes, I am afraid that mine suffered rather greatly in my escape from Grindlewald." I ignored the first question and answered the second. It was the cover story that Minerva had filled me in on that the Ministry and those others in the know about me were using. I was supposedly a spy for the British Ministry that had been discovered in the Dark Lord's ranks. It served very well I thought.

"Indeed, I had read of your arrival in Hogwarts in the paper just this morning. Causing quite a stir it is." Ollivander bustled forwards with a smile. "Wand hand then? And your last wand is, just for my peace of mind understand."

"Right, primarily but I try to work with both." I gave a bit of pause before answering the second question. In the end there was no helping it. "_Holly and phoenix feather_, eleven inches."

"Mmm, I've two wands with Phoenix feather cores at this time. A twin to that, and its brother in yew, fourteen inches." Ollivander mused, and I blinked. Could it be that in this world? My thoughts were broken by him handing me the twin to my original wand. "We'll start with the twin first, give it a wave."

I'd barely even touched it when he jerked it unceremoniously out of my hand and scowled at me.

"Why didn't you say you have a Mastery ring, and that you've undergone several rituals aimed at increasing and strengthening your power?" Ollivander all but snarled at me, whilst thrusting the Holly and Phoenix feather wand back into the box. I watched it with a faint longing, but shook myself out of it to answer.

"You didn't ask." I sniped back before calming. I gave a sigh at the fact that nothing was going smoothly today. I touched my face below my milky white left eye. "The Drink of Mimisbrunnr was the primary ritual, and the others were of the same sort."

"And you let me almost give you a young phoenix feather wand? Madness." Ollivander muttered before finally shaking his head. "I guess you'd not know it then?"

"Know what?"

"Phoenix feather wands are powerful, yes, but fragile. Too much power too soon and they'll explode the likes of which you'll never see again. They have to grow into power carefully, and a wizard as powerful as you can't imprint one." Ollivander gave a sad shake of his head and put the box up on the shelf. "It is a shame, that one would have chosen you, but only for a moment before it consumed my whole store."

I pursed my lips while digesting that. This Ollivander seemed a bit more free with information than the one I knew. Maybe it had to do with the whole lighter feel to this world, and perhaps it was just the distance the war was at this time. Perhaps he was sharing a secret with me because deep down he knew I could be trusted.

Ollivander disappeared sometime during my musings into the stacks of crowded shelves and I found myself thinking back to the summer I'd spent helping him out in his wandshop. He'd given me knowledge then too, but not of wandlore, but that of the history of Loundon Town and of Ollivander's in particular.

It was really the best lecture I'd been given on the history of the Wizarding World, but unfortunately for me, it was a century or two too far in the past to do me any good now, except for some bits about the forming of the Wizengamot, and the Five Hundred Founding Families.

"Here, we'll try these. If none of them work, then I'm afraid you'll just have to commission a wand or battlestaff." Ollivander said it in a huff, but I could tell that the man was looking forwards to them not working, if only to ply a bit of difficult trade.

"Even if one of them will work, I'll like to commission one of the latter, if it is legal of course." I said, my fingers itching to try the wands he was taking from the boxes. They were shorter than most wands, averaging six inches in length, and all were of two pieces of wood, which I knew even with my meager wandlore was a rarity. At Ollivander's questioning look I continued. "I am hoping for the Combat Professorship at Hogwarts, and I believe that a class on combat would be well served to present specialty foci."

"Here, try this one. Oak and yew, seven and half..." Ollivander jerked that one from my hand before I'd even touched it. "No, no, that won't do. Incompatible core. This one, Six and a third inches, bloodwood handle and ebony shaft with a basilisk fang core."

I managed to get this one in hand, and even before I gave it a wave I felt the warm thrill through my body that indicated a good match. At the wandmaker's questioning look I waved the wand and an eruption of multicolored sparks roared forth.

"Good, very good. Your compatibility with that one will only grow with time. Near a two thousand years old it is, and basilisk fang of that quality is impossible to get anymore." I looked up at that, dimly remembering a wand that had been made shortly before the turn from BC to AD fro the summer I helped him out. "Now you wanted a battlestaff? Very good. We'll chose the materials now, and I'll start the construction, but you'll need to get a waiver from the Ministry before I'm allowed to let you take ownership."

I gave a nod of reply, and the next few minutes consisted of Ollivander shoving one possible core material after another into my hands. After exhausting all of his ready supply he gave a sorrowful sigh and shook his head.

"I'm afraid that it is likely you'll need another basilisk fang if you truly want a staff, and I do not know where I might find one old enough to create a core of the size a staff will need. I've already told you why we can't use phoenix feather, and that is the only other core material that seems to resonate correctly with you." Ollivander's eyes dimmed and I could tell he was quite disappointed. "Strange that, normally two cores of so dissimilar magics wouldn't take to a person."

"I might be able to find such a core. I know where there might be a basilisk large enough." I said, trying not to think too deeply on what it might cost to get access to the Chamber of Secrets. Hopefully if I had the chance I could still opening it with parseltongue.

"Slytherin's beast?" Ollivander asked with a gauging eye, and at my careful nod he smiled. "That would do it, and I'd pay for other things from it as well. If it exists. Should you encounter it, take care to keep it alive, a live king of serpents that age would be a boon for the school."

"Yes, it would." Now that it had been pointed out to me, it didn't take a genius to understand that weekly milkings of venom alone from the great beast would enrich the school considerably. Not to mention the boon that fangs, shed skin, and blood would provide. "The wand?"

"One knut." Ollivander quickly replied and at my questioning look grudgingly explained. "We never increase the price of the wands, and with the age of that one... I'm afraid I'm overcharging you even now, but the coins simply no longer exist to pay its real price."

I dug out a pair of galleons that I had looted from the Evans household fund and placed them on the counter. "For the advice, and I'd like a wand maintenance kit, along with a wrist holder."

"Of course, of course." The slight man bustled to gather up my request, and set the items on the counter, sweeping away the coins. "You'll not want to wax the bloodwood, but wipe it down very lightly with your own blood now and again. The ebony will take normal beeswax."

"Thank you." I inclined my head before taking my leave from the shop. The wand fit the wrist holster very well, and the wand my forearm far better than its phoenix and holly predecessor. It was a powerful wand, but I had no time to linger on that, for I still had one more stop to make before Gringotts.

Strangely enough Madame Malkins was still open in this time, and inside I found her predecessor. I had no time for the custom dragonhide robes I wanted to commission, nor the money currently so I settled for a set of fine robes and well fitted trousers and shirt in acromantula silk. I had long ago learned that part of being taken seriously was to dress the part.

Luckily my time with the clothier was not nearly as trying as that with the wandmaker. In but a few minutes I was out of the shop and on my way to Gringotts wearing a set of clothing that did not bear the telltale sign of having been transfigured.

First impressions only happen once, and can set the tone for every encounter you have with a person for the rest of your days. Though people like Ollivander might look past clothing, and a woman like Malkin might see a figure as it should be clothed, others would not. A shabby dressed figure was simply a shabby person. A well dressed man, was one with power. I'd learned that from the unlikeliest of people, Draco Malfoy.

The figure I cut when I walked into Gringotts was of a powerful influential man. The robes I wore cost a weeks wages for most of Wizardkind, and the magic aura that I projected was a step or three even above the exceptional.

It didn't hurt that with my hair queued back to show my damnable scar, many recognized me from the newspaper story of just that morning.

I ignored the lines that the others were standing in, and instead strode directly up to the singular goblin seated at a raised desk in the middle of the open room. I pulled up to my full height before him, and unleashed the last constraints on my aura, letting it flare around me. I raised my right hand, letting the voluminous sleeve fall back from my hand to bare my ring of Mastery, Fifth circle, and the gaudy hunk of platinum and jewelry that served as the Evans signet. A single piece of parchment I withdrew from a fold of my robes, and I slapped it down before him on the desk, all the while looking over his head.

"Call the estate manager for the House Evans, because Evans of Evans wishes to speak to him." I enunciated clearly, pitching my voice to carry over the whispering going on around me. It was all a calculated insult, mixed with a dash of respect that only a Goblin would catch.

The Goblin was very quiet as he picked up the parchment and studied it carefully. He returned the respectful look over my head and cleared his throat.

"The signet." His voice was gruff, and more than a little irate. I curled my hand into a fist and presented the ring to him, smashing his knuckles into the table between mine when he grabbed for my hand. "All is in order. Graspslash will meet you in meeting room three. Pointcut, take him!"

I followed the contrite cart-goblin from the dias after ripping the parchment out of the Overseers hand, my teeth pulled up into a parting snarl. Learning to deal with goblins was a lot of posturing followed with a lot of guesswork, but I had figured out how to get respect, even if outright friendship still eluded me. The slight goblin wasted no time getting me to the door and hurrying me in.

"I am Harry James Evans of House Evans. I wish to register my inheritance with all interested parties, clear all outstanding debts and payments, and receiving an accounting of my holdings." I snarled slapping the parchment down in front of the Goblin that was even older than the Overseer. A wave of my wand conjured a chair for me to sit in, and I tucked it back in its holder.

The only reply I received was a glare from the Goblin before it turned its head to the parchment. It glared again, mostly because there was nothing in the parchment it could use to deny me access to the keybox which would verify my claim. In a thrice the box was before me.

"Blood and signet." Grabslash growled and I gave it a toothy smile in reply. With a calculated movement I used the sharp point atop the box to prick my finger, a calculated insult saying I knew he would not dare poison me in such a way, and finally I pressed the signet to the wax atop the box whilst swallowing the bezoar in my mouth.

Expecting goblins **not** to poison you when you use their blade to cut yourself is the height of stupidity.

Grabslash looked slightly disappointed, either because the box glowed and then clicked open showing the key within, or because I didn't drop dead from the poison on the box. It had been poisoned, I could feel the telltale burn of basilisk venom, and even without the bezoar I would have likely survived it. My meeting with Slytherin's beast had given me an immunity to its bite.

"The Evans estate has been defunct since the year One Thousand Seven Hundred and Ninety-Two. In that time the manor, the land of fourteen thousand and sixty acres, and the manor village of seventeen businesses and two hundred three houses have fallen into stewardship by the Elves of the House. There are no current human, or intelligent non-human inhabitants of the land, but for the aforementioned stewards." Grabslash looked up and glared at me. I could understand, if there was one thing that the Goblins disliked, it was a waste of profit potential, and letting that much magical land fall into disuse was a waste of profit potential.

"I would like to retain Gringotts to advertise the vacant business lots, and to take interviews for retainers or tenants to work the land and gather its bounty." I pondered my next step as Grabslash still looked displeased by the agreement. "As partial recompense for this loss of profit, I request that you charge me a rate double the standard."

That broke through his scowl, and the damn Goblin looked positively pleased. When you can't insult them, make them profit, that was my standard.

"Are you willing to take squib or mundane retainers and lessees? Will the House of Evans recognize prior lease and retainer contracts that were interrupted because of the falling of the House?" Grabslash made a note and took me offguard with his question.

"Yes. I want a full accounting of those contracts that were interrupted and a tally of which want to be bought out. I will also wish to view several current retainer and lease contracts before determining which to finalize. I trust that you shall have several for me to peruse by the end of our business?" I was wading through things I really had no concept of, and right now I didn't really want to enter into too many contracts.

"I shall." Grabslash made another note and continued with the report. "Currently the Evans Estate outside the aforementioned lands consists of monetary holdings, and vault contents that are not of monetary holdings. The vault holdings at current time are not individually tallied. Gringotts charges a standard flat fee of three thousand galleons to tally all non-monetary holdings. Current monetary holdings are fully invested by the Estate Manager, and have been earning an average return of thirteen point one five percent yearly since falling into defunct status, and currently total twelve million seven hundred nine thousand, five hundred and forty eight galleons, two sickles, one knut. Gringotts has taken a total of three million eight hundred and two thousand nine hundred and seventy-six galleons, four sickles nine knuts in charges for Stewardship in this time."

That was a bunch more information that I really didn't understand. I couldn't do the math fast enough in my head to really think how much money Gringotts had made for the account, nor the percentage of that made that they had taken in charges, but I knew one thing, the account had to be fairly small for it to have earned thirteen percent APR and still only number in the double digit millions. It was even more likely that the account had only really seen explosive growth since whatever Grindelwald did, mainly because I knew in my timeline that the account never held that much money.

"What was the average return on all non-defunct accounts over that time?" I wanted that information to make my next step. I knew I really needed to reward his efforts if I was to continue making money, and Draco had also taught me that wealth was power. You didn't have to use it, but as long as you had power you had a mediocum of safety.

"Seven point three two percent." Grabslash's grin could only be taken as smug, even for a being with far too many teeth.

"I see. I trust that it is still acceptable to reward an estate manager personally for greater than expected returns?" I watched him carefully as I spoke, and thus I did not miss the surprise that colored his face momentarily.

"Yes." Grabslash's voice was carefully even, and I had to think quickly. There was a need to reward him, but there was also a need to secure the financial health of the village, as there were likely repairs and expenses that needed to be taken care of before it was functional once again. Contract interruption penalties were likely to take a fair chunk of gold.

"I would like twenty percent of my current holdings to be liquidated to cash. From today on, I expect you to charge me a fee equal to half of the profit made above the standard Gringotts return." My smile got even more wolfish as I saw the greedy gleam in Grabslash's eyes. Before he had been making the family a load of money simply to raise his own status in the bank, but now he could line his own pockets while still gaining that status increase. I decided to tack on something else, just as a guarantee that the profits would still be good. "And should the rate of return fall below Gringotts standards, you shall make up the difference from your own pocket."

That quelled the predatory gleam in his eyes, but not by much. Grabslash segued directly into the next part of his report without pause.

"The House of Evans currently owes only the House of Weasley. This debt is of an unfulfilled marriage contract of a Witch of the House of Evans to a Wizard of the House of Weasley, which may be settled as a monetary agreement as three generations have passed since the confirmation of the agreement." Grabslash looked up, and I fingered my lips. Truthfully I disliked marriage contracts, but I hardly wanted to enter into any more financial obligations than I already had at this point.

"The House of Evans wishes to postpone the settlement of this agreement in either way until the birth of the first Witch of the House." That was good wording, and let me revisit the debt at a later date. Should I have a daughter, then I could either postpone things again, or I could simply try and convince them to settle for money then.

"So noted." Grabslash inked another note onto the parchment before him, running a long nailed finger down the page through several other agreements that looked to have been settled shortly before the line went defunct. Some of those were undoubtedly debts that had been exchanged for the help to the McGonagall clan, and others were likely settled when it became clear the line was going to fall dormant. "One debt is owed the House of Evans by the House of McGonagall. This debt is of an unfulfilled marriage contract of a Witch of the House of McGonagall to a Wizard of the House of Evans. This debt may only be nullified should there be no marriage possible in a generation, and a life-debt be owed to the House of McGonagall by the House of Evans. This is the final piece of business that should be taken care of before the notification of the Wizengamot, and your formal recognition as Evans of Evans."

Well that certainly explained why I hadn't heard of it. "McGonagall of McGonagall and his marriageable daughter should be waiting in the foyer if you would call for them."


	3. Chapter 3

Author's Note: I'd like to thank everyone who reviewed, and pointed out errors in the first couple of chapters. This story is much in the line of WYSIWYG, almost as it comes off my fingers and into a word processor. I'd also like to point out that a few ideas, such as Harry spending time with Ollivander over the summer doing inventory comes from Aaran St Vines' excellent work. There may be other stuff from other fanfics, but I've read so many of them that I really can't remember who to attribute to, or even if I really read it before.

Chapter 3

The statement to close that final debt certainly opened a barrel of monkeys fthat I had not expected. Then again I had never tried to close out a debt of that nature, and certainly had never done so while within Gringotts.

I had never even seen a debt of that nature paid off while in Gringotts to tell the truth.

Within minutes I found myself sitting in a room with not only Grabslash, but alsof the McGonagall account manager Riptear, Minerva McGonagall, her father Torean McGonagall, her mother Gunna McGonagall, Bartholemus Weasley who was a witness for the Wizengamot, and a Binder by the name of Wallish.

Once again I found myself adrift in the sea and I found myself looking at Minerva from across the table. She shrugged and mouthed to me, 'I couldn't stop them.'

It made some sense that. We had planned on having a handfasting ceremony after the school year ended. I for one had not want to meet with my prospective employer while bound to one of his current students. Unfortunately we had both failed to anticipate the level of seriousness that both the goblins, and Minerva's parents would put on immediately dealing with the debt.

At least I had convinced them to serve tea at my expense. A few cucumber and smoked salmon sandwiches had done much to soothe my rumbling stomach and nerves. Though perhaps not so much for the others that were present, given the unsettled looks at the things that the Goblins took for tea. I'm not sure of what half the things were, and this wasn't my first experience of taking a meal with the magical beings.

"Now that I'm not faint from hunger, might someone explain to me just why the handfasting must be done today?" I asked vanishing the plate before me. I poured another cup of tea for myself and leaned across the table to do the same for Minerva, adding another splash of milk and stirring in a slight dollop of honey.

"I am afraid that would be my, or well the Wizengamot's fault." Bartholemus spoke up with a somewhat embarrassed look on his face. "Shortly after you were dispatched to the continent the Wizengamot voted new rules to apply to defunct families that stood to be inherited. It was decided that any debts or payments that could be cleared had to be cleared before the inheritance could be registered and recognized formally by Gringotts. If you decide not to proceed with the handfasting today, I am afraid that your access to any monetary funds will be severely curtailed, and you will be barred completely from taking a Wizengamot seat or entering into any contracts until it is done."

"I see." The words rolled off my tongue even though I really didn't understand. Luckily Torean seemed to understand my plight.

"It was thought that it would encourage those inheriting Houses after long periods of dormancy to become fully involved in our political process, and keep those disinterested in anything but easy gain from making claims without fully thinking the process out." Torean's rich voice filled the meeting room that we were currently in. He eyed me warily. "I would have thought you would have researched all the pertinent laws before taking this step, given what is reported to have happened to you recently."

I gave a sigh, and looked at Minerva across the table. It would make things all the much easier if I could just tell everyone why I had jumped into things. The laws here were different than they were where I was from. Still, the story that had been agreed upon would still work here.

"I am afraid that I really did not have a choice in the matter. With my discovery, and subsequent escape I found myself in need of protections that only a position in Hogwarts, or a Manor could provide." I spoke softly, leaning onto the table as I settled my one eyed gaze on my prospective father in law. "The former requires that I successfully interview for the position, and the latter, with the information my father gathered before his death and the beginning of my mission was assured."

"Why didn't you claim your position before you were dispatched then?" Gunna asked, her sharp voice so much like the Professor McGonagall that I remembered.

"Doing so, Madam, would only have served to break my cover before I was even in place." I said softly, taking what I had learned of Grindlewald here, and what I knew of him from my own world and mashing the two together. Surely his goals couldn't be too much different between the two. "Grindlewald believes that ability should be rewarded with power, and that power is not inherited through blood. His Lieutenants, and more importantly Grindlewald himself would not believe that a young English Wizard Noble, just come into his inheritance, would so casually throw it away for a bottom run position in Grindlewalds forces. But they would believe a landless English Wizard would throw away nothing for a chance of greatness."

Minerva's jaw dropped slightly, a stunned look on her face. I had a moment of panic, thinking that I had got something wrong when the three men who sat at the table, as well as the Goblins there all gave a rumble of agreement.

I let a breath that I had been holding go in a silent sigh.

"Even though you were discovered before you could find any weakness in his defenses the chance had to be taken." Bartholemus stated strongly. I made a promise to myself then and there that I would do something to earn the respect that I was falsely given. There must be something I could do, or something I knew that might turn the tide of war in our favor. "I wish that I could do something to ease the restrictions on you, but I am afraid my hands are tied. The Wizengamot won't meet again until September, except for emergencies, so that route cannot be taken either."

"Fine." I said with a sigh, turning to Minerva's parents. "I would just like to know why you are still set on pushing this through now. Given what has already happened to me, I would think that you would be less inclined to support an immediate handfasting. You must know that Grindlewald will be coming for me again."

I wanted to know why they were doing this. I needed their reasons much the same that I had needed Minerva's earlier in the day. I had been manipulated and moved without my knowledge so much in the past that now, perhaps I went overboard in bluntly asking people why, and not taking their reasons until I received the truth.

"Harry..." Minerva started to protest, but I raised my hand to cut her off.

"I already know your reasons, Minnie. I would hear the reason as to why they would willingly endanger their daughter." I hardly recognized the hard tone my voice had taken. Had I become so attached to her in such a short time?

The married pair exchanged a short glance as everyone at the table but for their daughter leaned forwards in anticipation. Minerva just looked slightly ill as the contents of my words hit her. I knew exactly what was going through her mind then, and they weren't good thoughts.

"Truthfully we don't see her as being anymore endangered than she already is." Gunna replied, surprising me. I had expected her father to speak up, not her mother. "She has already made it quite clear that she would be joining the fight at Hogwarts and not evacuating if the school were to be attacked, and despite our best efforts to persuade her otherwise she has taken steps that will see her active participation in the war should it come to full on conflict."

I gave a slight nod. Those were valid points, and even ones that I could agree with. Back when I was still in school I had wished several times that the adults around me would treat me as the adult I was becoming, and not the child they still saw me. Could I fault her parents for doing just that?

"I will admit that I am torn." Torean's voice was subdued. He glanced at his daughter for a moment, and continued. "Professor Dumbledore contacted us as soon as he reached his rooms after your claim of the House of Evans when you arrived that night in Hogwarts. We did not know the full story until this morning, but that full story is both frightening and a relief. Frightening because we now know she is going into danger, but a relief because the one she is going into it beside has already passed through something night unimaginable. Yet here you are on your feet before us, with nigh a sign it happened, and that makes the fact that you are a wizard of rare power an obvious fact."

I looked from her parents to Minerva herself in the silence that fell. Now she had the full truth, from all parties involved. So did I, and we could now make a decision with no regrets.

"We shall go forward with it then." Minerva spoke firmly. I gave a slight nod and Bartholemus gave a strong sigh.

"Good then. A handfasting will serve in the Wizengamots eyes evidence you are moving to absolve this payment. Should it be dissolved in any manner other than a wedding ceremony within six months, then a special council of the Wizengamot will need to inspect your case." Bartholemus gave a grin, and I made a mental not to speak to him later about other issues, namely the battlestaff and taking my seat on the Wizengamot.

That seemed to be the cue for another barrel of monkeys to be opened. Both Goblins called out loudly and within moments a veritable army of lesser ranked Goblins had cleaned out the table, brought in an altar, and the binder had set the tools of his trade up upon it.

Strangely I found myself standing to the right side, even though I didn't remember rising from my seat.

"Who gives this woman?" Wallish asked in a voice that resounded with tradition.

"I give her, the daughter of my blood." Gunna and Torean spoke together in one voice, the burr of their accent deeper than I could remember hearing it before.

"Who comes willingly?" Wallish intoned again, and I could feel the magic welling up around us, inside me. It was prompting me to speak.

"I come willingly." I spoke, my words blending together with Minerva's.

This was yet another aspect of the magical culture I had never seen. Either because it was lost in the wars, given up as unnecessary, or simply kept private by the pureblood faction. Perhaps it was a bit of all three I mused, before my thoughts were interrupted by the Binder's speech.

"What do you give, Minerva?"

"I give my body, my life, my magic freely to this man." Minerva's voice trembled slightly as she spoke the words, not daring to look at me.

"What do you take, Harry?"

Once again the magic prompted me to speak, though I did not know the words. "I take this woman's body, her life, her magic as it is freely given."

"What in exchange do you give?" Wallish asked, the magic around us growing stronger. I could feel strands of it wrapping around my left hand, pulling it towards the altar. I thought of resisting for a split second, before giving in, and allowing it to be drawn there, much as the words were drawn from my mouth.

"I give my protection, my house, my name freely to this woman."

"What do you receive, Minerva?" When Wallish spoke, my hand was stuck to the altar with such force that I doubted I could ever remove it, even it I wanted to.

"I receive from this man his protection, his house, his name as it is freely given." By the time Minerva had finished speaking her hand was palm to palm with mine, our fingers interlacing together.

"As you are now bound, magic to magic, soul to soul, so to shall you be bound flesh to flesh symbolize the eternity that your magic and souls shall spend together." Wallish all but croaked the last out, tapping our hands three times with his wand. There was a soft flash of light and when it disappeared a pair of ribbons one red, and one white bound our hands together. They were twined around our thumbs and then wrapped over our fingers and wrists, so that if we wanted to part hands we could not. "_Defixio_. The ribbon is the strength of your bond, as it fades the insubstantial bond of magic we cannot see shall grow. For seven days while the bond between you grows, the ribbon shall remain to see you are not parted."

That was something I hadn't been expecting.

* * *

It was a quiet, somber mood that accompanied the four of us, Gunna, Torean, Minerva and I when we departed the bank some hours later. Forms had been signed, signed again, over and over again in quadruplicate. I had never known that taking ownership of property, of acknowledging debts paid had been such a tedious pursuit. Then again most of my inheritance had been cleared by Dumbledore as Steward of the Potter line. These were likely things that he had dealt with for me leaving me to only claim it when the time came.

"That took quite longer than I expected." I muttered when we stepped back out into the mid-afternoon sunshine. There was only four or so hours left until we were required to return to Hogwarts, and I still had the bulk of my shopping to do. I looked at Minerva, who was still quite pointedly not looking at me, a slight blush on her cheeks. "I am afraid that you are stuck helping me with my purchases, which when it comes to the bookstore may be a boon for me."

"Shopping?" Gunna interposed in a interested voice, drawing her eyes and Minerva's to my own. I shared a look with Torean over her shoulder, and suddenly realized I had said perhaps the entirely wrong thing.

"Yes. I had hoped to apply for the open position of Combat Instructor at Hogwarts." I supplied, moving towards the trunk shop that I had seen earlier in the day. "To that end I will need all of the necessities. Trunk, books, a sword, I dare say all the things that a student should need, but all the years together."

"I would think that you could owl order most of that." Minerva said from the said and I gave a nod of my head.

"I could, but there is something in seeing it firsthand. With owl order you never know why you should pick this trunk, over that trunk." I said pointing to two samples outside the store that we had arrived at. Both were fine looking trunks, multple compartments, enchanted with lightening and shrinking charms, and both had a bit of engraving on them. One was new, one was used, but for all that the used was was by far the better trunk to the eye, even with the lower price. The seams fit together well, the wood took a better sheen, and the locks, buckles, and hinges looked far sturdier even with the wear they'd seen.

"You've found yourself one with a keen eye, that is for sure Minerva." Torean said, clapping a friendly hand on my shoulder.

It went along that thread for much of the day. The bookstore yielded up treasures of used books commented in the margins by teachers and students, and not a few Masters working towards recognition in their field. By the end of it Minerva was picking through the Transfiguration texts as avidly as I was, realizing there were bits of advice and teaching inside them that could not be found anywhere else.

I bulled my way through the potions supply shop, tucking away a complete Master's set of cauldrons, scales, self stirrers, timers and reagents. Minerva appeared to have as much as like of potions as I, but despite Snape trying to put me off one them I knew my way around a cauldron. During the fight with Voldemort the only potion you could often trust was one you stirred yourself, or a very close friend stirred for you.

Clothing was the only stop that was left, and as we approached Madam Malkin's I laid down a few base rules while looking between Minerva and her Mother.

"I am not a clotheshorse. We will not be in here any longer than it takes to get the necessary everyday garments and another set of dress-robes. I know this must be terribly disappointing to you both," I stated while sharing a grin with Torean between their shoulders, "but please try to remember the the few things I get now, the longer you get to try and convince me to stay longer the next time. I am, however, absolutely rubbish at choosing colors besides the basic black."

"What are our limitations?" Gunna asked while eyeing me up and down as a lion might a gazelle.

I thought about the prices I'd seen on the shelves, and thought of what I might need. "No more than five hundred galleons please, and I'll need at least seven everyday robes, with trousers and shirts, two good dress robes...."

"Fourteen everyday, and six dress." Gunna countered, her eyes narrowing in a way I knew from Minerva. I wouldn't be able to argue this down.

"I am not trying on that many." I set my foot down on the one item I wasn't going to budge on.

"You won't have too, right Mother?" Minerva looked at her mum, and received a nod. "Madam Malkin will just charm up one of the dummies to be the right size."

"Why don't you ever have the blasted woman do that for me?" Torean groused. He received sheepish grins in reply which only prompted him to step forwards. "Fine, Harry and I shall sit on the bench outside here, and have a pipe. There are some things I wished to discuss with him at any rate." Torean turned to me and motioned to our bound hands. "Just think of the ribbon lengthening, and you'll get a bit of a least. Twenty feet or so, not enough to really let you go anywhere independently, but enough to take care of certain business."

"That is good to know." I mumbled, looking down at our hands.

I concentrated as Torean had said, and could feel it loosening around our hands. I had been wondering just how things would work, when either of use needed to use the facilities. It was with mutual reluctance, which I was rather surprised about on my part, that we released hands. Minerva looked over her shoulder at me as she stepped into the store, giving me a smile, and I couldn't help but return it. Strangely the red and white ribbon was still visible if once again mostly insubstantial.

I settled onto the bench that Torean had indicated previously, and the older man flicked his wand absently, setting up a silence and obscuring field around it. He sat down beside me, and offered me a cigar.

I'm not and never have been much of a smoker, but a good cigar every now and again is a wonderful thing. This was very much a good cigar, and I gladly accepted the offer. Torean trimmed it for me, and set about packing the bowl of his pipe. His eyes grew rather round when I wandlessly lit the cigar, and I mentally made a note to tune down my wandless magic.

"Minerva has assuredly found a good one." Torean muttered, sitting back to nurse his own pipe into flame after dropping an ember into the bowl which he canceled the stasis charm on. We puffed in silence for a moment before he broke the silence. "I thought to explain something about the handfasting spell to you while we have this chance, and a learn a bit more about your holdings."

"I would appreciate the former. I must admit that I did not know of the ritual until we were doing it." I held up my left hand, and then shrugged in a helpless manner. "On the latter, well you need not worry about my being able to support Minerva and myself. The Evans monetary fortune might be only modest in comparison to some, but the land holdings are fairly substantial. Fourteen thousand acres, though it has likely all gone to seed and will need much work to bring it back to the height of productivity."

Torean nodded, and then very cautiously began. "The first thing to know about the handfasting ritual is that I contains a very subtle but strong compulsion charm. It doesn't 'force' you to love or even to like the person you are bonded with, but it does reinforce in your minds what you find appealing about the other. It also makes you downplay those things that you find annoying, and causes some subtle changes in your actions. Should you find, say, that you dislike Minerva pinning her hair up, then she would find herself more unwilling to take the time to do just that."

I thought about that, savoring the strongly flavored smoke from the cigar. There must have been a air freshening charm in the set that he had cast around the bench or perhaps even a permanent enchantment on the object for that, because the air kept clear even with the clouds we were exhaling.

Compulsion charms were something I knew a lot about. Voldemort and his forces had made widespread use of them in their takeover of the Ministry in my past. They were subversive, but as Torean had claimed of the one in the handfasting unable to truly change your mind. The only one that could truly cause you to do something you didn't want to do was the Imperius charm, or its various potion variants. Amortentia, and one nicknamed Liquid Imperius were both of the latter.

"Much like a mild love potion then?" I thought aloud. It would explain things, such as why I wasn't as disturbed as I thought I should be about events.

"Yes, exactly." Torean his voice laced with relief. "As with a mild love potion it works only with what is already there. If you feel fondness and respect for a person, it will reinforce those feelings, and like with all love potions outside of Amortentia if you only feel hate and loathing, well it won't do much at all. There have been more than a few arranged marriages that have ended the handfasting with cancellation agreements."

"So if Minerva and I end the seven days with nothing more than mutual respect and fondness? No deep seated feelings of love?" I was trying to clarify something, and this was perhaps my one chance of getting it done.

"Then the agreement will proceed." Torean sighed and turned towards me. "I can tell that either you or your parents were strongly attached to the ideal of only marrying for love. You probably grew up in the Colonies then, they've always been a bit more progressive."

Torean waited until I gave him a nod. It was as good of an explanation as any. "That view, even today, is somewhat aberrant in British society. Gunna, whose maiden name is Tavis, and I have six years separating our births, and outside of a few parties had not spoken to each other at length before handfasting. I attended Hogwarts, and she attended MacIvies School of Magic for Women. We had little in common at our arrangement and perhaps less fondness for each other at the end of our seven days than you seem to have with my daughter now, but over the years I have found that I would rather not have any other woman by my side."

I gave a soft nod, chewing on that. Arranged marriages were not common, but not unknown in the time that I came from. I had several offers tended to me when I gained my majority, more out of tradition than anything else. Still I knew of some from my Hogwarts class that had married those they had been arranged to, and a few were even people I had known fairly well. Susan Bones had sealed an arranged marriage with a Ravenclaw five years ahead of us that I hadn't know well at all, and she had always seemed comfortable with it.

"Part of it is perhaps that even in the short time that I have known her, Minerva has earned my respect." I mused taking another puff of the cigar. I rolled it between my thumb and forefinger slowly. "She reminds me a lot of two of my closer female friends, the only ones that I'd ever truly thought about marrying actually."

"If you don't mind, what happened to them?" Torean asked, and I wasn't able to mask my wince as the question brought up old wounds. He opened his mouth to speak again, but I cut him off.

"Dead. One was a rather tragic accident, one was killed by a..." I searched for a fitting description, realizing at the last moment that 'terrorist' wasn't in early twentieth century vocabulary. "A very evil man. He was a pureblood extremist and she was a muggleborn, or as seems to have become common a first-generation witch."

Torean winced and expelled a soft curse under his breath. "I might not support heirs or eldest daughters marrying a first generation, but men like that make me wonder why we don't all support Grindlewald, but then where would that put us? The continent is a mess right now as far as magical land ownership goes. Many of the purebloods there put up powerful wards and charms on the property before fleeing, and he'll be years breaking down those protections. With the Americas willing to trade to him, and Africa rife with unrest it isn't a wonder that the cost of potions ingredients is rising so fast."

Potions ingredients were in short supply? I revised my projections of the ability to make money from my land upward a bit. There were items that would have to be cleared, and normally the practice was to simply slash and burn, but even 'weed' magical plants had uses in potions.

Torean gave a shrug of his shoulders as if to say 'what can you do', and moved smoothly on. "Fourteen thousand acres is a fairly respectable allotment of land. I believe that there was a village associated with the Evans holding as well?"

"Yes, some businesses, houses for those that were working on the land and such." I gave another puff of my cigar, which was burning quite low for sure. Another fingers width remained until I would have to extinguish it, or risk looking a boor. "I have several contracts to look over, and payments to authorize on those that had to leave their leased lands before the end of their contract, not to mention the need to authorize new contracts for new tenants and retainers. Then there is the need to modernize the village, oversee the harvest of plants from the tracts that will become fields once again."

"Indeed." Torean looked at me with his piercing gaze and set all his cards on the table. "How closely do you wish our families to be allied Harry?"

That only took a second of thinking to come up with a response. "Given the nature of the exchanged debts, I'd say we'd have to be fairly close or the other families will try to take advantage of that fact. I can't promise to back you always in the Wizengamot, and I know you can't either..."

I trailed off and he gave an answering nod. "If you wish I have a contact in the Apothecary business who will undoubtedly buy everything you want to sell at full wholesale price. I can even end you some of my own workers, with the schedules we have set up on the fields they are in a slack period for the next two months."

"That, would help immensely." I said with a soft sigh. Truthfully I had very little in the way of estate management and what I did know was only because I had hung out with Neville for a couple summers and learned it through association. "Truthfully, Torean, I have very little idea of what to do. I've never been formally instructed in estate management. I would consider it a debt..."

"Minerva has been thoroughly instructed in just that." Torean said, cutting me off. "Her brother was just born six years ago, and I did not wish to entrust it to the fates that I would live long enough to see a son, and when he arrived she was the best choice for a proxy until he came of age should something happen."

I vanished the now too short cigar. "I will speak of it with her then."

"Speak to her about what?" Minerva's voice suddenly intruded from behind. I shot up as I turned to face her.

"Speak to you about the management of our estate." I said, putting a little emphasis on 'our'. If we were going to be doing this together from now on it was best to start now. "We can speak about it on our walk back up to Hogwarts as we should really be going, if you have my trunk ready?"


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Given the way the rest of my day was going, I should have expected that simply walking back into the school wasn't going to be possible. Word had leaked somehow to the press that I had been out and about, and that I was going to return. Probfably had been leaked by a student who had either overheard the discussion in the Infirmary, or who had later heard it from one of the staff.

At any rate there was a mob awaiting my return.

"Mister Evans! How did you escape? Is it true you dueled Grindelwald himself?" It seemed like hundreds of voices were jabbering for my attention, and asking questions. Not to mention the thousands of flashes that erupted with our arrival.

"_Bloody hell_." I whispered under my breath, flicking my wrist to launch my new wand into hand. The cannon-shot spell that had served to quiet them fifty odd years into the future during my seventh year seemed to do the trick now as well. It didn't hurt that half of them were now running away as fast as they could either, damned reporters. "I am afraid that any questions pertaining to my former position must be addressed to the Ministry of Magic. I am under strict orders to maintain my silence." I gave them all a glare, my best impression of Snape in fact, and continued. "Now, if you would excuse us, I am afraid that the Castle will be going in lockdown at any minute, and I have given my word to return the student that has served as my guide before that happens."

Minerva, thankfully, didn't say a word as I hustled her forwards before I had even stopped speaking. The Keeper of the Keys, a short, balding man I didn't recognize held the gate long enough for the pair of us to slip through, and then just it rather forcefully. The lock snicked closed behind us with but a wave of the key, which wasn't a key at all but a special rune-stone which controlled the wards in the gate.

"They been nosing around ever since ye left. Ye'd best get up tae the castle, the Headmaster he'd be wanting tae talk tae ya."

"Thank you Mister Plank." Minerva said smoothly, and I had to wonder if being a Keeper of the Keys also required you to have a rather thick accent.

I'd barely been able to follow it, and was rather glad Minerva knew who he was. That led to another startling revelation, and I couldn't keep it back as we turned back to the castle.

"Is there, well, a first or second year by the name of Rubeus Hagrid in Gryffindor House?" I could hear the trepidation in my voice when I asked. I couldn't remember what year that Hagrid was in during the current year, but I remembered that he had only a couple years of schooling when Tom had framed him for opening the Chamber of Secrets.

"Yes, there is. A first year, though he towers over all but the sixth and seventh year boys." Minerva's lips pursed in a way that I knew she found something distasteful about the whole thing. "There are those among the other houses who believe that people like Hagrid shouldn't be allowed in Hogwarts, and I should hope you are not one of them."

"As a halfblood you mean." A bit of my own feelings on the matter bled over into my voice, and Minerva took them the wrong way, not knowing me nearly as well as I did her.

"I'll have you know that Hagrid is a good boy. He is a prodigy in Care of Magical Creatures and quite gifted in transfiguration...." Minerva's rant was cut off by my finger on her lips. It was something that worked against Hermione when she worked up a fine lather, and it appeared to work as well with Minerva as well.

"I shall have you know Minnie, that Hagrid was my first friend. He was the first person to show me the magical world, and the first person to tell me the truth about my parents. I, my family owes him a debt, and I intend to see it paid." I dropped my finger, trying not to think to heavily on the other way of dissuading her that had come to mind. Minerva squeezed my arm slightly, and composed herself with a sigh.

"I am sorry Harry, but it has been an uphill battle even in Gryffindor to get my fellow housemates to see his merits as a person." Minerva offered me a shy smile as I looked up at her again, and I returned it with a bit wider one. "Having Dumbledore sponsor his attendance has caused quite the scandal."

"Then we shall just have to work on that some more." I filed away what else I was going to say for a later date, noticing that there were a pair waiting for us besides the main entrance to the castle. I inclined my head in greetings "Headmaster Dippet, Deputy Headmaster Dumbledore."

"Ah yes, our mysterious young guest." Dippet glared at me, a visage that I knew all too well from the portrait that had hung in the Headmaster's office. The painting had never liked me much, and I had never truly understood why. Strangely the look softened after a moment. "Good, very good. It is always a pleasure to see that tradition still means something to you youngsters."

"I see congratulations are in order." Dumbledore smiled in that welcoming way which was so familiar. Even though I still had my misgivings about the whole thing I smiled in reply. "I have informed the Headmaster of your intention to interview for the position of a Professorship. We both," Dumbledore glanced over at his predecessor, "have some concerns about your ability to teach the material. We understand you have a Mastery, but..."

"But some things come only with hard experience. I find it difficult to believe that you have that experience." Dippet finished off, leading the way into the castle.

I had been expecting something like this, and originally I had been planning on offering to duel Dumbledore, Flitwick, and the DADA professor all at once, but I couldn't do that now. The handfasting spell wouldn't allow me the freedom of movement necessary in a fight, not one at that level, and a more traditional one on one match was unlikely to convince them that I knew anything but standard dueling methods.

"I have had much in the way of hard experience." I snapped back, a bit of bitterness seeping into my tone. Much of that hard experience had been had here in these walls that I still considered home. The thought came to me suddenly that I didn't need to physically demonstrate my skills to show them what I was good at. I had all that tucked away in my memories, and I just needed to show them. "Would either of you possess a Pensieve?"

Albus caught on first, which wasn't surprising. "I do in fact have one. Should I take by the question that you are going to show us your abilities through the use of a memory?"

"It seems the best that I can think of, and truthfully is in my mind a better idea than fighting the other Professors, even against odds. You both will be able to see me against those that I learned to fight against, and who in turn learned to fight against me." I looked over to Minerva who seemed to be losing the fight against curiosity. She seemed halfway between lecturing me on my tone and needing to find out what what truly bothering me. "Yes Minerva, you can watch as well. It would be best if you knew what I faced, and I'd rather not have to try and tell it to you."

"I do have a question before we view your memory." Dippet stated after several minutes of walking in silence. He did not bother to wait for my agreement but forged straight ahead. "You have been through many rituals to strengthen yourself, but the main one, I barely recognize. It is Nordic in origin is it not?"

I hadn't really wanted to talk about the Drink of Mimisbrunnr, or the ritual which was associated with making it. Neville and I had undertaken the ritual, which we had found in the Longbottom Grimorie and pieced together with muggle myths, out of desperation. It had been shortly after the fall of Hogwarts, and I had been nearly mad with grief. Ron had fallen that day, like Hogwarts, to Voldemort's wand. The Dark Lord had been immensely strong that day when he had dueled the three of us Gryffindor's to a standstill. Neville and I had seen the futility of trying to continue the fight when Ron had fallen, and we had fled before Riddle's wrath.

"Yes." I said shortly, trying through my tone to avoid further questions. I had been hoping for a normal life here, and though much of what had happened today was not normal, for the first time in a long time I had thought I would reach that goal. If the full truth of my abilities came out, then I'd

"You will have to pardon my curiosity," Dippet continued, "but my position requires I know more of this ritual. I cannot have a Professor that turns to the dark for power."

I winced and inclined my head in understanding, my hand moving to finger the scar that still marred my forehead. Given the nature of many rituals he had a valid reason to be concerned. Tom Riddle had turned to the 'easy' path when he had gathered and increased his power. Everyone was a tool to him, and he used them cruelly. Sacrifices were made of Non-Magicals and Magicals alike, human sacrifices aimed at increasing his power, his strength. He branded his followers with a perverse mark of slavery, claiming a portion of their magic for his own.

No, I knew too well what a follower of the dark could do.

"I hung myself from a tree of ash for nine days and nights, pierced through my side by a spear made by my own hands. A maiden of pure heart gathered my blood and tears, but offered me no succor of drink or food while I suffered." I began hesitantly, the mere speaking of it bringing back all the pain I had felt. Minerva let out a startled gasp, and clung to my arm as I continued. I couldn't bear to meet her eyes. "That blood, those tears, the sight of my left eye, her gift of learning, feathers from Nightravens, and the sap of the ash tree combined with magic and runes to make a potion, the Drink of Mimisbrunnr. Wōđanaz is said to have created this potion, or at least that is who our reference credited."

"The Nordic Merlin as he is called." Dippet mumbled softly, and I once again inclined my head in agreement. That was the name given to him, but I rather thought that if more had been remembered of that ancient wizard, that he would be put a bit higher than Merlin. I knew the power that the ritual gave me, and though I had used others to enhance my ability further that original one was where I garnered the strength to equal Voldemort. "Then all of your rituals are of the personal sacrifice kind? Will you make the Drink widely available?"

"Yes." I answered to the first, drawing looks from all three of my current companions. I stepped through the portrait guarded door into living quarters that I recognized as those of the Head of Gryffindor, and once Minerva's before I continued. "And no, I shall not be making it available. There were two of us who attempted the ritual, and in the end only I survived. I was months in recovering from it, and truthfully I wouldn't trust the power I gained in the hands of many."

"Harry, if it has been found once, then it can surely be found again." Minerva stated, soft concern shining in her eyes. "If it is that dangerous..."

"The reference we used wasn't complete. We were forced to piece it together from clues and leaps of logic." I pursed my lips, remembering the months of trial and error just to get the other ingredients to look, perform the way they were hinted as being. "I very much doubt that there will be many who would attempt to look for it, and of those that do, only a smaller number will even begin to find what they seek."

Part of my faith that it would resurface was because there was presently no Hermione in the world that I knew of, though Minerva undoubtedly came close, and for that matter no Luna. Both had been instrumental in the recreation of the ritual, and without the unique combination of logic and intuitiveness that the pair had brought to our desperate gamble I didn't think anyone else would succeed. Even if they did, there were other paths that could be taken to neutralize the abilities granted.

"Quite so, and you need not worry Minerva. Harry here is not the only one of us present that has undergone obscure rituals." Albus said in a soft voice, his eyes twinkling madly. I had to wonder then, if that twinkle was a byproduct of some obscure ritual. "One rarely gains the connection to magic that both Armando and I have without help of some kind."

"Too true, too true. I do wish though that I had taken more of an interest in Alchemy than I did." Armando rubbed his hands over his wrists fretfully. "Perhaps then my joints would not ache as they do."

The sitting room of Dumbledore's quarters was sparsely furnished. A writing desk and chair occupied one wall by the fireplace, under a window overlooking the lake. There were a pair of well padded, wingback chairs sitting at the foot and head of a coffee table, and a very old looking wood loveseat sat to the side of the table facing the fire. I suppressed a snort of laughter when I realized that the only change Professor McGonagall had made in the years she had resided here was to take the majority of the cushioning out of the chairs.

"Have a seat Armando, Harry, Minerva, I'll be back shortly with my Pensieve." Albus walked into what had to be his bedroom though I couldn't tell for sure because of the obscuring charm that filled the doorway.

"I'll let you young things have the loveseat it is what that is for, and my bones are in need of the warming charms Albus places on his chairs." Headmaster Dippet settled in one of those chairs with a sigh.

It was strange being seated so closely to a woman that I had known my whole life previously as a Professor. Stranger than the near constant hand-holding that we had been doing since the handfasting ceremony, stranger than walking next to her. The loveseat was, well, intimate enough that our thighs and hips brushed together at every small movement, and I could feel the rigid presence of the corset that Minerva wore under layers of cloth. The warmth of her presence was vaguely comforting though, and in response to her rigid posture, no doubt mandated by her Headmaster's presence, I squeezed her hand comfortingly.

"Is our status going to pose a problem, Headmaster?" I asked, curious as to how he was going to deal with a married couple in the castle. As far as I knew during my time at Hogwarts nobody had been handfasted let alone married, and that included the Professors. Seeing the confusion etched on his face I clarified. "By the time that I had attended Hogwarts the practice of arranged marriages had become quite rare, and normally couples married in their twenties or even thirties."

"Oh, my." Dippet looked rather shocked and appalled at such a statement. His head shook vigorously, and he rubbed a hand over his bald palate. "No, not at all. Currently there are a hundred and eighty couples either handfasted, or married in the halls of Hogwarts. The majority of sixth and seventh years of course, though there are what, thirty in their fifth year, Minerva?"

"Yes, though that number will rise over the summer, and some of the current fourth years will start their fifth year after being bonded this summer." Minerva said, completing my shock.

Part of it was the sheer number of students that it hinted at. A hundred and sixty couples in sixth and seventh year would make at least three hundred and eighty students in those two years. Say a hundred and sixty a year that are bonded, and perhaps two hundred students in a year altogether. That meant that there were at least four times as many students currently attending Hogwarts as when I had attended school.

"It should not be that surprising, Harry." Minerva said, misinterpreting my shock. "The binding settles better when at least one of the pair is still maturing in their magic, as I am. There are other benefits to handfasting early and for an extensive length of time as it allows both to learn to accommodate the other."

"I see, but I was actually shocked because of the number of students." I said, my voice barely keeping from cracking with controlled emotion. How badly had Riddle hurt the Wizarding Population in Britain? I doubted he had managed to kill that many during his reign of terror, but to drive off numbers that large, it seemed unthinkable. There had to be other forces at work here.

"I know the school would have grown by the time you attended, but fourteen hundred and seventy-two students is nothing to sneeze at." Armando said proudly, and with just a bit of irritation. "Classes are twice as large as when Albus attended, and that is with the opening of four other schools and the expansion of our traditional Isle competitors."

"Indeed, the Headmaster has worked long and hard to insure that Hogwarts has remained the premier School of Magic in Great Britain." Albus said, startling me out of my ruminations. He set the pensieve on the table in front of us, and then took his own seat. "I daresay that the creation of a combat class designed to give a step up to students pursuing careers as Aurors, Hitwizards, and Cursebreakers will no doubt keep us in that spot as well."

"My class when I graduated Hogwarts, which was the most populous school in Britain at the time, consisted of forty-two students." I said, my eyes closed as I dropped the bomb that had so startled me on them. The hiss of shock from all three showed that they were just as startled by what I told them as I had been of their words.

"My word." Armando whispered seconds later, sounding like a man who had just been told the greatest love of his life had died. "Perhaps your work with Grindelwald has borne fruit more pleasant than we had thought, Albus."

"I did not think I would ever say this, but yes, perhaps it has." Albus looked old, much older than he had when we had met at the castle gates just minutes ago. "Now if we can only keep him from consuming the whole of the world."

"A discussion for another time. The evening meal draws close, so let us see your memory young man, so that I can determine if I need to introduce a new Professor at it." Armando was turning more and more into a man that I did not expect. Everything that I had known of him before coming to here said that he had been frail, and perhaps ineffective at his post. Then again when he was followed by Dumbledore who had been hailed as the next coming of Merlin by many, how could he not look weak?

I frowned, concentrating on a memory as I lifted my wand to my head. There was only one I could show them. "This fight is from roughly two years in my past, and before the rituals. It was the last large scale fight I was involved in, it broke the back of the remaining resistance to Voldemort's rule in both the Ministry and in the General Public. The fall of Hogwarts."

* * *

Minerva McGonagall had grown up steeped in magic, she had attended Hogwarts for six years and had grown used to seeing the tall strong walls that none could shatter. That time had not prepared her in any way for the visage that awaited her in Harry's memory.

Hogwarts lay in ruins.

The great walls were crumbled, the towers had collapsed, the main doors were rent asunder, but around the castle in the vast open fields there lay the evidence that though Hogwarts may have been breached, she had not gone down without a fight. There were a dozen giants that lay still, or were groaning in pain from mortal wounds before her. Hundreds of trolls and acromantula lay dead before her walls, and here and there some of the gargoyles that defended the castle still moved hunting out the horrid creatures that still lived.

For all that though, Minerva felt something in her die at the sight that Hogwarts made. If this was the future, then she was not sure she wished to see it. Figures faded into existence, appearing to be only pale ghosts of the reality. Still Minerva was more concerned with the castle then their appearance.

"Harry." The hissing voice was full of so much malice that Minerva barely believed it could be real. It was cold, hateful, and full of loathing far beyond what she had thought was possible for anyone to feel.

When she saw the man who spoke the words she realized he was not a man at all, but a thing. Tall, thin, pale of skin, with a face that resembled that of a snakes more closely then that of a man, he was the epitome of all that was vile. Red eyes peered out from beside a nose that was but two slits, and a thin lipless mouth curled into a sneer. His head was bald, and the skin appeared to be made up of scales, only adding to that illusion that he was more snake than man.

"Tom." Minerva's head snapped around to the second figure that spoke. Harry Evans, her bonded, and apparently the leader of the forces that arrayed to defend Hogwarts. He was, she realized, not much older than she was now, and several years younger in age then he currently was. For some reason Minerva had thought that this fight had been much closer to his present than it really was.

"Hogwarts has fallen ... Evans." The snake faced Tom spoke once again. Minerva caught the slight bump in the speech, the memory having obviously been edited slightly. Given the looks on her Professor and Headmaster's faces they had caught it as well.

"Evans is not his real name?" Headmaster Dippet asked, turning slightly to Dumbledore.

"I had thought it was. It is hard to say what his true family name is, but as Minerva can attest and the ring shows, he is an Evans by blood." Albus responded, stroking his beard in a way Minerva knew was habitual when he was deep in thought.

"...your last chance to bow down before me. I will give you an easy death." Tom had completed hissing out.

"Hogwarts may have fallen, but it and we are not yet defeated, Tom." Harry replied.

There seemed to be a battle of wills going on, and in the silence that fell between the groups Minerva studied those arrayed on both sides. Of Tom's she could not tell much as they were all cloaked in black and wearing bone white masks. They were all faceless, dark presences but Minerva had grown up in a world facing Grindelwald who used much the same tactics for his shock troops so seeing it here, now, without the Teutonic Eagle rising overhead was not nearly as frightening.

On the other side Minerva started when she saw none other than herself. Older, grayer, with the faint tracery of lines on her face but that was undoubtedly her in the future. She stood by a small wizened form that was just as clearly Filius Flitwick, and beside a much younger man that had to be a Weasley. It drove home then and there that Harry really was from the future, that he really had seen things happen that might happen again in her world.

A shiver raced up her spine as she thought of having Hogwarts fall in her future, seeing it not in a memory but in reality.

The shiver was all she had time for as the two groups seemingly took Minerva's chill as the sign to start the fight.

"Avada Kedavra!" A dozen voices shouted, hissed, and snarled together from Tom's side. A veritable wall of green raced towards the other group only to be met by a true wall of stone. Minerva's eyes widened as she realized she had been one of four to help in that joint transfiguration, and then her eyes widened further as the rest of that group stepped forwards.

"Bombarda!" The explosion charm was a basic one, but with over twenty voices intoning it at the same time, plus Filius Flitwick an unparalleled Charms Master, the wall stood no chance. An explosion of rock blasted outward as it served its purpose of both defense and attack. Black cloaked figures leaped aside, cowered behind hastily transfigured walls of their own, or in a very few cases raised shields to weather the hail of stone.

"Confrigo, Bombarda, Impedimentia!" The quick trio of spells ripped off of Harry's wand. Minerva found herself drifting closer to the fight as the rest became much more hazy. Though that was unusual in a Pensieve Memory, it was not unheard of when the person whose memory was used was unnaturally focused. The spells that flowed from Harry's wand showed that focus being sharp small bursts of light rather than large irregular blobs, and the trio blasted Tom away from his followers.

Harry and two others his own age, one Minerva thought might be a Longbottom and another that had to be a Weasley, hurriedly moved to force Tom away from his supporters. Minerva quietly chewed her lip watching, wanting to help out but unable to.

The fight quickly escalated to a level that Minerva found herself unable to follow what spells were actually exchanged, and it didn't help her any that many of the spells were done silently, some even wandlessly. She had thought that with the odds being three on one the 'Dark Lord' would have been put on the defensive, but that was not so. It seemed, if anything, that he was still fighting from a slightly superior position.

Minerva could tell that the trio of boys had a plan, for they continued to push Tom further and further away from his supporters, shoving him deep into the remains of Hogwarts where the broken bones of the castle itself helped their defense, and hindered his offense. That started to turn the tide in the other direction.

They had Tom surrounded, and cursed him from behind the giant stone blocks of Hogwarts' walls, which were still full of residual magic all but impervious to spells.

"Damn you ...Evans!" There was the small stutter as the memory had been edited once again.

"They are doing well so far, especially against one so versed in the Dark Arts." Albus commented softly to Armando, the fight temporarily at an impasse as Tom had cast some sort of dome shield that Minerva did not recognize.

"Indeed, however we haven't really seen anything too impressive yet either. I had hoped..." Armando Dippet trailed off as suddenly five of the masked and cloaked followers landed in front of their leader. That was another bit of magic Minerva did not recognize, it had to be a variant of a portkey, but it had looked like they had been pulled to Tom.

"To see how Harry deals with multiple opponents? I believe we are going to see that now." Albus said in a distracted voice.

Minerva took a half step forward as the dome shield dropped coinciding with a massive offensive by Tom and his masked followers. Crucio was the spell of choice this time, but all three boys managed to avoid it. Minerva found herself restrained by Albus' hand on her shoulder.

"Easy Miss McGonagall, there is nothing you can do. We know Harry survives this, and what wounds he may have taken have already long since healed." Albus said softly into her ear. There was no time for her reply though.

The battle had taken another step forwards, and though the trio had proven to be all but outmatched by Voldemort earlier, the same could not be said for now. Fighting three against six, they were proving to be well trained, and able to press the advantages that they still held in the uneven fight. The Longbottom, whom Minerva was sure of his lineage now, had moved so that his curses were firing through the tight group in the center. He wasn't targeting any single person in the group, but was using area effect spells in order to hammer them all at once. The Weasley had taken to shooting out pinpoint accurate spells from the side, and transfiguring various debris into traps, animals, and animated weapons to attack their foes.

Harry, well Harry had done something that had Minerva's heart hammering in her throat. He had stepped out directly in view, and was using a technique that had made Filius famous on the dueling circuit.

Harry dodged and leaped, ducked and twirled out the way of curse after curse. The Unforgivables he dodged and the rest, the rest he parried with sweeping motions back at those he fought against. This was a man who was at home in combat, who had the preternatural reactions that would make him an instinctive seeker, and someone who could let his body move without engaging his mind.

Still there was something bothering Minerva about the fight, Tom wasn't fighting nearly as well as he had been. "Why..."

"The drain of the dueling charm, and it was compounded by his summoning of his supporters." Dippet replied, sounding slightly awed. "You can feel the wards, even here in the memory if you know what you are looking for, and they are still mostly up. That perverted portkey exhausted him, and now he has to recover."

"Merlin's beard..." Albus murmured after Harry did what was considered impossible. His wand had hooked out and parried a Killing Curse. The shot of green flicked back and struck one of the masked figures, dropping them instantly.

There was a jumble of curses as the others in that group suddenly, and reflexively looked over their shoulders. They had been the only ones to use the Unforgivables so far, but the sudden death of one of their own to the burst of green unsettled them.

It was enough for the smaller group to turn the tide once again. The momentary lapse of concentration proved deadly to another pair, a blasting hex took one, and a transfigured stone lion ignored a Killing Curse to crunch happily into the other.

Minerva mentally reminded herself to keep that in mind.

It looked for one moment as if the three were going to triumph. They had halved the numbers against them, had their enemies reeling with shock, but the fact that they had been pushing themselves too hard too long found that moment to make itself clear. Harry stumbled, sweat beading off his brow and his robes were soaked with it.

"Crucio!" The curse slammed right into Harry as he was trying to rise back to his feet. Tom held it while cackling with glee.

"Harry..." Minerva mumbled, watching her to be fiance writhing under the pain curse. Her hands hurt from where her nails were digging into her palms, and she barely kept herself from trying to help him again. It tore at her fiercely to see him like this, she wanted to help, where was she?

Minerva looked up and around trying to find herself, but the area was fogged badly, and only those in the immediate area visible.

"Harry!" The Weasley called out, and with a crack he was at his friend's side.

"That cost him..." Armando murmured as the redhead went on the offensive, breaking Tom's concentration, and thus lifting the curse.

"Ron, no!" Harry cried out, struggling to rise, but falling again as his trembling limbs failed to support him. Minerva watched, tears filling her eyes as the dark haired young man crawled forwards, even as Tom raised his wand once again.

"Avada Kedavra!" Tom snarled, and Minerva bit her tongue in attempt not to call out.

Ron, the now named redhead, tried to intercept the curse with a stone wall, but his enemy was too close and he was far too tired. Stone rose, but too slowly to intercept the green jet of light.

The memory faded as Harry's cries for his comrade tore through it.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

"My word... my word indeed." Armando Dippet breathed as he sat back from the Pensieve. He was pale and shaking, and didn't look good at all. None of them did to tell the truth.

I didn't want to face that day again, which was why I hadn't entered the Pensieve with them. There were things that I knew I had forgotten about that fight that would have been revealed to me in enchanted device, deaths that I had not even realized I had seen that would be there waiting for me.

It had been hard enough facing the mere thought of remembering the day well enough for the extraction technique to work. A day that I had lost a brother if not of blood then of soul.

I had cut the memory short at his death, just because I didn't want to subject them to what happened afterward. Neville and I had fought a retreat back to the rest of the fighting, unwilling to leave behind our other comrades even though the battle was lost. I debated that action every time I had thought of it since. We had managed to warn them to leave, but our movement had drawn Voldemort himself directly into the thick of the fighting. Ron hadn't been the only one on the side of the light to die that day.

"I dare say Filius would enjoy a friend bout against you one day Mister Evans." Albus said softly, taking his spectacles off his face and slowly cleaning them. I watched in silence, playing with my robes anxiously. "I would like to someday know the name you were born with, but that is a question for another day."

"Indeed, Albus, it is. I think I shall announce that we have a new Professor this eve, but I'll leave the introduction off until tomorrow." Armando said, turning what had to be a kind eye to me. "The castle has already opened a new set of quarters in Gryffindor's tower, and the elves have no doubt moved your things Miss McGonagall. If you'd be so kind to show Mister Evans the way, I'll see that they serve a meal in your room. I daresay you both could use the time away from prying eyes."

I chanced another look at Minerva, who had her hands bunched up in her robes, and was most pointedly looking at the floor. Slowly her hands unknit from the cloth, and she looked up at me, tears bright in her eyes.

"I... I have to know, Harry. Is that, is it possible that what happened there, will happen here?" Minerva spoke, giving word to the fear that I knew that both of the older men had, and that I had myself.

I opened my mouth to speak, but closed it and thought carefully. "Possible, yes. I do not think it likely though, from what I've seen so far of this world, well it is unlikely that the pressures that caused Tom, or as he proclaimed himself, Voldemort, would give rise to him again. Grindelwald has seen to that, but could it happen? Yes, which is one of the reasons why I want to teach here."

"Tom is a student here then?" Armando asked, his brows rising, and then furrowing in thought.

"Possibly, but I have no idea if his life molded him the same here as it did in my past." I chewed over a bit of information I had received earlier in the day, and decided to let it loose here. "I already know that the wand which he used in the future did not choose him here. That may indicate that he is a different person."

"That it may, that it may." Armando murmured softly before waving his hand. His eyes grew hard again when he turned them on me. "I think that you're too young for this position boy, but you've got the experience for it. You'll be probational for at least two years, and I'll expect that if Miss McGonagall takes your class that there will be no cause for claims of playing the favorite."

I gave a small nod at that, but Minerva put the concern from all of our minds. "I'd not let him, Headmaster, and you know that when I put my mind to it..."

"That wild dragons can't drag you away, yes, quite we know that quite well." Albus said with a soft chuckle. He stood and moved over to a wall mounted candlestick, and rotated it a quarter turn clockwise. A section of the wall retreated and then slowly swung away, revealing a narrow set of stairs. "This will take you directly to the Gryffindor common room, and you're only learning of it a few months early Miss McGonagall."

"I see," Minerva said primly, with a bit of satisfaction in her voice. Her hand reached out for mine, and squeezed softly before indicating with a tug that I should stand. I did so and she rose with me. "We shall retire then. Good eve, Headmaster, Professor."

"Good eve, Headmaster, Professor." I mimicked, with an incline of my head. I had heard Mr. Weasley say often enough what the key to a good marriage was, and this was not a fight I needed to fight.

"Good eve." Echoed back at us as Minerva pulled me towards the staircase, and then started up it at a pace that I was hard pressed to match.

Even though she was years younger I could still tell that this was a sure sign that Minerva was working herself into a right huff. I rather thought I had figured out what it was too. Hermione had always got more upset if I tried to head her off in her rants, so I figured the same would probably be true with Minerva, given the way she used to silence us with a look before telling us how out of bounds we had been as students.

The exited into the common room from niche in the wall between the boys and girls stairs that Harry remembered seeing but hadn't ever looked closely at before. The common room wasn't what he remembered it to be either. To put it bluntly, it was huge, at least five or six times the size of the one he grew up sitting in. There were four massive fireplaces, one to each cardinal direction, along with chairs, tables, and sofas galore. The only thing that remained the same were the staircases, the entrance to the common room from the castle, the entrance to the head quarters, the color scheme, and the view from the windows.

"How..." Harry murmured, and then shook his head when Minerva looked at him. "I sometimes forget the wonders that magic can do."

"I suppose it was smaller when you attended?" Minnie asked, her eyes softening slightly. She smiled at my nod and gestured to the room. "Hogwarts is built on a node that has seven ley lines running into it. They can't power the wards, but they do power the castle itself, allowing it to change itself as needed. Everything from the size of the rooms, to where the classrooms are, and the creation of walls and towers to keep pace with military technology. Though the latter has all but stopped with the integration of the wards."

There was a nice neutral topic, maybe I could put off things for a bit. "The wards weren't put up when the castle was built?"

"No...just who did you have for History of Magic?" Minerva asked, and I rubbed the back of my head sheepishly before answering.

"Professor Cuthbert Binns, he was a ghost at the time, and well didn't lecture on much but the goblin rebellions." I gave her a sheepish smile. "Most everyone used it as a chance to catch up on other homework, or to sleep."

"Oh, he used to work here, but Armando replaced him several years back when the OWLS in History started to slip. And, no, the wards weren't part of the original defenses as the Founders believed in more active defenses. Wards didn't become popular defense for anything but crypts until fourteen hundreds, when the non-magical threat started to become serious." Minerva replied, opening the door to the Head's chamber which unlike when Percy was Head Boy didn't open into a room, but into a hallway with doors to either side. Obviously the 'Heads' labeling in this time not only meant Head Boy/Girl, but possibly Head of Household as well. "We will be near the back."

Minerva once again led the way and eventually opened a door that currently read 'Evans & McGonagall', I had seen several on the way labeled in a similar manner, handfasted couples of course, and at least three nearer to our door that only had a single name over the door, probably married couples. The door opened into a tasteful, if sparsely decorated sitting room with two open doors that led off to a bedroom, with two beds, and a private bath.

Minerva shut the door behind me, and turned. "I was going to have a very stern word with you about taking such risks, but I have no doubt that you have already heard it. Instead I will simply ask, will you be doing the same in the future?"

"Only if it is necessary for our safety." I replied, guiding Minerva over to the loveseat. This was a better discussion than others we could be having right now. "I can't promise never to get in a battle again, Minnie, but I can promise that I'll attempt to avoid any that would not serve to keep us as a family safe."

"I would be lying if I said that is what I wanted to hear, Harry. I do suppose that I will be able to live with it though." Minerva said after a short time of thought, and when she looked up she changed the subject of conversation. "I would like to know just who that man in your memory was though."

Telling her was something I had been debating during the whole time that they were in the memory. If I told her, and he was at Hogwarts, it was likely she would know who he was. That could color her treatment of him, and if he was tending to the dark might just push him over the edge.

Of course if he was here and going dark another set of eyes could always be useful. I couldn't chance having him unleash the Basilisk on the school, not with as crowded as the halls in this time would undoubtedly be. People would die, and in droves. I couldn't have that on my conscious.

"His name in my past was Tom Marvolo Riddle, the son of a non-magical, Tom Riddle, and a witch by the name of Merope Gaunt." I paused wondering how much explain, and decided to go with most of it. "The Guants were purebloods of the highest sort, marrying brothers and sisters when they couldn't contract marriage any other way. Descendents of the Slytherin line. Tom never forgave his mother or his father for abandoning him to live in a muggle, that is non-magical, orphanage and wished to eliminate all non-magicals."

Up until then I hadn't even been conscious of putting Tom, Voldemort, on the back burner. It slapped me in the face right then though. Still I can understand why I had unconsciously done it, back in my time he had been the most power Dark Lord alive, but here and now he was a fifth year student.

"I am not aware of anyone who is currently attending Hogwarts that is of the Slytherin line. If he is here he is not in Slytherin, and is hiding his lineage." Minerva says, her lips pursed in thought. Her brow furrows further as she sorts through the other information that she has been given. "What class would he be in?"

"A fifth year now, a sixth next year." I say, and she nods a bit. I decide to go for broke and describe him.

"Yes, yes I have have him now. Thomas is a Hufflepuff, not sure how he'll go wrong in there." Minerva stated and she looked up at me. Her eyes went wide when she saw the relief in my eyes. "What is wrong, Harry?"

"Nothing, nothing at all. In fact something is very right, Minnie." I pulled her into a tight hug, the relief feeling as if someone had pulled Hogwarts itself off my shoulders.

I had not thought that action all the way through to the conclusion though, as Minerva's body slowly relaxed against my body. Her face was so close, her eyes deep pools of uncertainty. Still she had not been sorted into Gryffindor for nothing. Her lips brushed mine in a hesitant kiss, and then again in a more confident one.

"Minnie..." I started only to be silenced again by the press of her lips.

"Hush. There has been enough of the morose for this evening, and I for one had different plans for what to discuss with you this night." Minerva pulled away from my arms with those words and motioned to the table set off to one side, which now bore several chaffing dishes. "I will expect something more lighthearted for our meal, perhaps the estate management you hinted at earlier?"

* * *

It was a disparate and strange group that I led to the second floor girl's bathroom just after noon the next day. Minerva, of course, was part of it as was Albus, Filius, Alphard Black who was the head of the DADA department, Professor Silvanus Kettleburn of the CoMC department, and after much wrangling on Albus and Filius' parts Crunchsmash, the goblin who taught estate management to the sixth and seventh years.

I had brought up the Chamber with Albus and Dippet during my discussion with them over the possible curriculum for the class I was to teach, and the probable class sizes. Having such a place within Hogwarts that might or might not be included in her defenses was bad enough, but having the basilisk living under the school was unacceptable. Thus the immediate expedition to determine both the status of the Chamber and that of the king of serpents. I had argued for waiting until after the Express had carried off the children for the year, but Armando would not hear of it.

"Here we are then." I said after casting a few quick charms to ensure the loo was empty. It was, strangely, still in the same place that it had been in my time possibly because it anchored the exit to the Chamber even though it was no longer the only girl's loo on the second floor.

"And how do you know its here then, again?" Silvanus asked gruffly, looking at me strangely and rubbing the rather abrupt end of his left arm with his right hand.

"I can hear the rustle of Parseltongue spells still lingering." I murmured, ushering everyone into the bathroom.

Most of the questions I had faced when I had revealed that I spoke Parseltongue had been related to what magic it could do. There were rumors and myths about the strength of spells that Salazar Slytherin could use, but to the best of my knowledge it was simply a language like any other. Spells and wards were not any more powerful in Parseltongue than in English or Latin, just a bit more difficult to identify since they were in a language that so few spoke.

A murmured incantation from Albus set a thin gold line at the door. "An Age Line, it will keep all but the staff out."

"_Open." _I hissed at the correct faucet, glad that I had put my language ability to the test prior to coming here. Hermione had always wanted to know if it was a soul-link with Tom that had given me the language ability, or something I had inherited from my parents. I still wasn't sure, but given the unlikely chance that a soul-link would endure through fifty years of time and a dimensional boundary I thought it was the latter. "The text I learned of this from indicated that there was a long, dirty tunnel that led down to the Chambers."

"Perhaps there is a command to make stairs?" Crunchsmash growled.

I gave a sheepish shrug and tried just that. "_Stairs."_

The Parseltongue command did nothing, and Albus stepped forwards. "It will be easy enough to transfigure some of the muck into stairs. It will not hold indefinitely, but a few hours should suffice."

An effortless wave of his wand produced a set of steps leading down the yawning mouth of the tunnel. Another placed softly glowing orbs of crystal, and I gave a wordless shake of my head to see his ability with transfiguration again. Minerva had been good, but she had never quite reached his level.

"He is quite good." Minerva mumbled from beside me, her wand in her left hand and mimicking the motions she had just seen. "I do wonder how he does it without the correct motions."

"Intent Miss McGonagall, it is all in the intent." Albus smiled over his shoulder, his eyes twinkling madly. He turned back to the tunnel and mused. "I am not nearly as good with charms though... Scourgify."

I took the lead again as the only one who knew what was coming, though I had passed that information off as reading in it in a diary of someone who had found the Chamber while they were in school. The tunnel was every bit as long as I remembered it, and with the steps the trip took a lot longer. Still it was easily large enough that even Hagrid at his full height would have had no trouble descending it, and the descent through twists and turns were gradual enough that a snake could climb it easily.

"This is Goblin work." Filius said softly part of the way through the descent, his fingers tracing over the walls as I looked back.

"Enslaved Goblin work at that." Crunchsmash growled again, sounding even more upset than he had earlier. Luckily Albus was on hand to deal with that.

"And if the Chambers are deemed to be suitable to add to the school we will be paying Goblins to finish it." Albus tapped his wand on his open palm for a fee seconds and gave a nod. "Even if Armando does not open the school coffers, the House of Dumbledore will pay for this."

"And if you do not choose to add it to the school?" Crunchsmash growled only slightly satisfied by the statement.

"It will be filled in." Albus stated turning a bright eyed glare on the Goblin. "I'll see to it myself."

"Your word then." Crunchsmash's words left no other reply available, and I let out a breath that I hadn't known I was holding.

The current balance between the Goblins and the British Ministry was a delicate one, I had learned from Minerva the evening before. They were the major bankers in the world and their main magical competitors, the gnomes of Switzerland, were currently hidden behind vast wards and were sitting out the unpleasantness in Europe as a whole. The sealing away of a vast amount of currency on top of the introduction of non-magical banking concerns had turned the markets volatile, and the Goblins had reaped the benefits of that. Now they were looking to assert that power, and there were faint rumors of yet another Goblin rebellion.

I didn't want this adventure to become the strike that would spark that blaze. Luckily it looked like Crunchsmash was more than willing to take Albus at his word, and the payment to finish off the Chamber would double as a bribe to keep relations good as well. There would be need to discuss this with Albus before that payment was made, however, as there were several ways to turn this whole mess even more in our favor.

The rest of the journey into the first Chamber was done in silence, and when the giant cavern opened up before us I couldn't help but to squeeze Minerva's hand. She anchored me then in that room as the memories rolled over me. I hadn't ever returned, but I swore I could see the faint, ghostly images of Lockhart, Ron, and I in the room.

"What's wrong?" Minerva whispered in my ear, drawing me slightly to the side as the others fanned out to examine the large initial chamber.

"Bad memories." I mumbled back. The desperation I had felt that day had flooded back in full force, and it was only by the strongest of efforts that I was able to push that feeling back under my Occlumency shields. I didn't want to talk about it, no more than necessary anyways. "We'll need to see if a Pensieve is among the Evans' artifacts, and if not see about purchasing one. I don't want to be bothering Albus every time something comes up."

"They are quite useful." Minerva muttered while I led her over to the circular door that guarded the entrance to the next part of the Chambers.

I could see now that there was a lot more to the complex under Hogwarts than the two chambers I had seen. There were other doors leading off the first chamber, but none were sealed with the snake entrance. Why I had not seen them my first time here, I could not say, but it was possible that Tom had either sealed them, or hidden them from view for some purpose of his own.

"We will most definitely be adding the Chambers to Hogwarts." Albus stated as he glided in beside me. "There is a ritual room in one of the side rooms and a very well set up one at that."

Well that explained why I had never seen those doors before. Tom would have sealed off something as important as a ritual room, even if he thought he was the only one who could access it. Ritual chambers were difficult to set up, as they had to be steeped in ambient magic, normally done with runes and crystals, but they couldn't be made with magic, and they had to sit dormant to allow the flow of magic though them to become calm and steady; a decade was about the lower limit and the older a chamber was the better.

"The other rooms are more of the same, all keyed to different rituals. Most will need to be sealed, unless the Ministry is willing to relax the restrictions on blood rituals." Alphard Black stated, and not for the first time that day I wondered if this was the uncle that had left Sirius the house he lived in after Hogwarts. The DADA Head seemed likeable enough, and he shared much with what I remembered of Sirius, same rakish grin, and the same gleam in his eyes. "Personal chambers behind this door?"

"No." I replied, tracing my fingers over the engraved snakes in front of me. "Perhaps the antechamber to his personal chambers, but the diary that I read indicates that there is only a large open room beyond this with a large bust of Salazar. _Open."_

That revealed a short tunnel, and at the end of it a room with which I was much more familiar. The chamber that I had battled the basilisk in. A basilisk which was curled up in the middle of the room, surrounded by the pillars carved with snakes, and very much under a stasis spell.

That was the best thing I had seen all day to tell you the truth. "I wonder how my source managed not to mention this."

It appeared that my soft gasp expertly covered up the surprise at seeing this right here. I had been waiting for the snake, but I had honestly expected the thing to be waiting to kill us all.

"Well, that's a bit of a let down." Silvanus puts his words right where my feeling aren't. I've already battled a thirty-foot basilisk, and I'd much rather not try that again. "Perhaps for the best though, that's a bloody large bugger."

"What do you think Professor Kettleburn? A large helmet or mask to cover the eyes?" Albus is already warily casting a series of detection spells. The CoMC professor just gave a nod as a reply.

I join him after a second thought, and we are both joined by Alphard a second later. "Nothing beyond the stasis charm that I can find. It is rune powered though."

"A rune powered stasis field actually." Alphard says after a long moment. He looks rather thoughtful. "I hadn't realized ward precursors that sophisticated were in use that long ago."

"It is possible that there were others who laid them down." Minerva stated after a moment of silence. The look she gave me promised that I'd have to have a very good explanation for my earlier statement. "After all, Harry knew of the chamber from a diary, could there not have been other members of the Slytherin line that gained access to these chambers?"

"The Gaunts of course, but the last of that line who attended Hogwarts was long before my time." Albus nodded thoughtfully and looked at me. I was busy filling away that little tidbit of knowledge. "You know the translation enchantment charm do you not, Harry? Slytherin's beast will likely be much more willing to do what we ask if it can understand us all, and can communicate with us."

The translation charm is something I am very familiar with, given the need to move often in the past couple years. I had not realized that it could be used on a magical language.

"It works on magical languages?" Silvanus thankfully asked the same question I had been thinking of.

"Indeed. The possessor of the magical language must simply charm an object to translate while in the presence of something of the native speaker." Filius stated, reminding me that he was actually present. "Consider that Albus is able to speak and understand Mermish, an ability of all Dumbledores that I know of. Should he charm say, a rock, to translate from Mermish to English and vice versa while wet..."

"Though that would allow us to communicate with the beastie, it does not get us by the problem of how we are to mask it while it is in a stasis field." Silvanus said, drawing our attention back to him. He glowered under the weight of so many eyes. "What? I use them from time to time myself. Useful ways to store ashwinder eggs since you can't charm them directly like. Still anything inside the field immediately freezes where it is. You can't shove anything in there, it just stops at the edge."

"Indeed. We will have to research this thoroughly." Albus was walking around the edge of the stasis field, as outlined by the ridge of dust on the floor. "The first milking of venom alone from this beast would likely equal the full salary of a senior professor. This could go a long ways towards making sure that Hogwarts remains fully independent of the Ministry."

Given the number of students at Hogwarts during this time, combined with the bylaws that limited the increase of tuition I knew that Hogwarts' general fund must be currently hurting for money. The rapid expansion of students and staff had to have severely strained the coffers that the founders had set up for the school, and it was unlikely that those coffers had benefited from Goblin management like the Evans family had.

"Yes, further study is needed. Filius if you would be so kind as to set up charms and wards around this Basilisk so we are to know if it awakens." Albus turns and motions to the door. "I will have you leave the entrances open for us for now, Harry. We will of course set additional defenses around the upper entrance, but for now I think it would be best if we did not call upon you further."

Given the way that Minerva nodded sharply at that, I knew better than to try and argue. Besides I had enough of these Chambers for today, perhaps after they had been fully completed my ghosts would no longer reside here.


End file.
